


Fireflies

by Ardatli



Category: Young Avengers
Genre: Angst, Awkward Conversations, Awkward Everything (until it’s not)., Awkward Sex, Camping, Depictions of depression, Hopeful Ending, Intercrural Sex, Legal age of consent in New York State is 17, M/M, NO DEATH, No Attempts, Oral Sex, Post-ACC, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-09
Updated: 2013-10-09
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:20:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,825
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ardatli/pseuds/Ardatli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The world had washed in gray when Cassie and Vision died. Not all at once, or fast enough that he noticed right away, but the color leeched out from around the edges first until it had always been that way. It hurt to breathe. The ache lodged in the middle of his chest. If they cut him open they would see it, a physical thing, a bowling ball of bile and doubt and unshed tears.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>In which Billy’s depression doesn’t vanish overnight, and Teddy wants to get out of the city. </p><p>Or, the one where Teddy makes Billy get off his ass and do something.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireflies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Drkirsch1391](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Drkirsch1391).



> Thanks and eternal blessings on the heads of my betas, caterpills and feeleapb. You make me so much better.
> 
> This piece was written for the Young Avengers Reverse Big Bang, for this art prompt by Drkirsch1391. 
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you so much for the inspiration! I hope this touched on some things you were hoping for when putting it together. 
> 
> There is a section which might ping as dub-con-ish through some lenses; notes are at the end of the fic. If this is a concern, please do read those before continuing.

I'd like to make myself believe

That planet Earth turns slowly

It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep

'Cause everything is never as it seems

-          Owl City _, Fireflies_

**i.**

If Billy could find the words, if language didn’t seem like a nebulous and dangerous thing to pin meaning on, if the world stopped _changing_ every time he opened his mouth, he would say that it was safer for everyone if he stayed on the windowsill.

The world had washed in gray when Cassie and Vision died. Not all at once, or fast enough that he noticed right away, but the color leeched out from around the edges first until it had always been that way. It hurt to breathe. The ache lodged in the middle of his chest. If they cut him open they would see it, a physical thing, a bowling ball of bile and doubt and unshed tears.

If he breathed too deeply, it would crush him. If he moved, he would splinter into a thousand jagged shards.

_And wouldn’t that be better, get you out of their way. They’re going to lose patience with you eventually; even mom has her limits._

_She’s afraid. You can hear it in her voice, even though she thinks you’re not listening. Especially when she thinks you can’t hear._

_They’ll lose patience, and sooner than you think._

The sun rose and fell, the morning light flat and insipid. There was no warmth to it, no heat. He slept-walked through bathing and dressing and eating what was in front of him. The beat of hot water on his skin cut into the static, but those moments of clarity never lasted.

Teddy talked to him less, his mother talked at him more. Her words slid, eel-like, curling twists of sound that he could chase but never catch. She paused, waiting, and he nodded. She hissed air out through her teeth in a sound that used to make him worry. That had been a long time ago.

Teddy stopped coming home right after school.

_It was inevitable; you can’t take care of yourself, never mind be anything good for him. He should have a chance at a life, not be tied down to a lump like you._

_He deserves so much better than you._

When Teddy walked through the living room with an empty duffle bag, the flare of surprise was almost good, just for being something new. This was a different pain, sharper and fiercer, slicing him open to spill hot red heart’s blood on the wreckage of his life.

 _He_ should _go. You haven’t done anything to stop him. You haven’t given him any reasons to stay. You aren’t reason enough. Not like this, the mess you’ve become._

The sunsets shaded thin and grim, smog-tinged summer clouds reflecting nothing that could touch him. He wrapped his pain around him and curled inside it, the city falling away below, eaten by the shadows and the night.

The light turned on.

The room flooded with gold and yellow, and Teddy was standing in the door. Billy’s hands shook and he knew what was coming. There was a bag in his room that had been empty, and now it was full. He was leaving, for Kate’s, or Avengers Mansion, and Billy could keep on slowly dying, alone.

Except that Teddy said something very different and held out his hand as a lifeline.

If he moved, he would shatter.

If he didn’t, he would die.

“Are you going to get off your ass and do something?”

He didn’t deserve the second chance.

He took it anyway. He shook as he rose up on the balls of his feet, just a little, let Teddy close the distance between them and press their mouths together. Touch felt strange, after so long; he couldn’t count the days – _months_ – that had fallen through his fingers. He let his lips fall open a little and Teddy reeled him in. His mouth was hot inside, and Billy was frozen to the core.

He began to thaw.

\--

He ignored the _hell_ out of the packed bag until Friday, when Teddy came back from school early. Billy sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands, his hair too long and too messy under his fingers and his back bowed under the weight of decisions and his parents’ hopeful stares.

Teddy walked in, paused only to run his fingers through Billy’s hair and brush them lightly against the back of his neck. It felt tentative, an opening to a conversation. Billy sat up but Teddy was already gone, down the hall to his bedroom. He returned a minute later, the bag over his shoulder and a different backpack in his hand.

His dad stood, as though this was something he’d expected. He had his hands in his pockets and when he pulled them out, he had the ring with the car keys on it; the ones that fit the ancient station wagon that they only used for things like moving boxes, or driving upstate to visit Bubbe Rose. “Ready to go?”

The betrayal was so swift and so complete that it left him breathless. Aaron made gaping fish-faces at him from the other side of the table as a suggestion of what he must look like. They all knew, how long had they known? Teddy didn’t look upset at all, that was the worst thing. He was going to pick up his bag and walk out the door, like this wasn’t Billy’s world crumbling in on him.

_He deserves so much better than you. Don’t you want him to be happy?_

Teddy held out his hand, steady and sure, a poor match for the trembling that had apparently set up permanent residence in Billy’s. “Coming?”

Billy blinked. “What?”

His dad looked sad again, and Teddy frowned, then just shook his head and grabbed Billy by the hand anyway. He hauled Billy to his feet without any effort at all, caught him when he stumbled. The weight sitting inside him should have crushed them both, but somehow Teddy’s grip made it lighter. Teddy’s arm settled around his waist, held him there until he was steady again. “Conversations work much better when you actually listen to what you’re agreeing to,” Teddy said as he let go, and there was a kind of exhaustion in the back of his eyes that hurt to look at.

Something had happened, obviously; some time he’d nodded without listening, made noises without understanding what they meant. “Sorry,” Billy apologized inadequately. He wrapped his hands around his mug and let the heat sting his palms; a focal point. “What did I miss?”

“Oh, the options for that answer,” Billy’s dad jibed, and that was another thing to hold on to. Normal still felt so far away. The sunlight through the kitchen window cast highlights on the side of his mother’s face, the countertop, a square of light on the floor at her feet. Dust motes sparkled in it, drifting aimlessly.

“We’re going camping,” Teddy replied. His eyes were locked on Billy’s, looking for something, so hopeful and so earnest, and he wasn’t leaving. That is, he _was_ leaving, but he was taking Billy with him, and that was a third thing to focus on. He looked for words and couldn’t find any good ones.  

“We’re what?”

“Camping. Two nights, you me, a tent, a campsite about an hour out of town. Mom-“ Teddy hesitated for a moment, only a little bump in his voice, then he kept going. The little vein throbbed in his neck and Billy wanted to lean in and kiss it until he relaxed. He couldn’t, not in front of his family, but the urge was something both new and returning. He clung to it. “Mom and I used to go all the time. You need a change of scenery, I need some fresh air, and we both need to get away from everything for a couple of days.”

Camping? Billy hadn’t been camping since that one time his mom decided that it was exactly what they needed for a proper ‘family bonding experience.’ That had ended with two broken tent poles, a dead car battery, and a bear. They’d gone to Disney the next summer instead.

“I need clothes.”

“I packed stuff for both of us. All you need to do is put on shoes. Your dad’s going to drop us off at the campsite tonight, and come pick us up on Sunday.” Teddy watched as he dug his sneakers out of the pile of shoes by the door, his movements on jerky autopilot. “The cooler’s already packed and in the car, your dad helped me dig my old tent and stuff out of storage, and the air mattress doesn’t even have any holes in it,” he finished with a note of triumph.

“That’s actually a remarkable achievement,” Billy said, the joke slipping out without having to think about it. The answering grin he got from Teddy was enough to make that little spot of warmth inside flare brighter, just for a moment.

“You need to get going if you plan to get there and get set up before it gets dark,” his mom interrupted, glancing knowingly at her watch. “Ted, you have your phone?”

“Fully charged,” Teddy replied, and actually fished it out of his pocket to show her. Kiss-up. “And I can plug in at the bathrooms if I need to charge it up again.”

“If you need us to come and get you, for any reason at all-” she continued, looking from one to the other. When had the frown lines around her mouth gotten so deep? She hadn’t looked so old or so tired last year.

“I’ll call, Mrs. K. I promise.”

 She nodded, and Billy knelt, busied himself with tying his shoes, not looking at her face and the worry that he’d put there.

_At least she’s still alive. If it wasn’t for you, Teddy’s mother would be alive as well._

That whisper he could ignore, or try to. Even the voice that circled the back of his brain, shark-like, sniffing for blood – even _that_ couldn’t make the Super-Skrull’s attack Billy’s fault.

“And I know I don’t have to tell you this, but I’m a mother, so I have to find a way to embarrass you,” his mom continued, and Billy jerked his head up in sudden anticipation of dreadful things. “No smoking, no alcohol.” She pointed from one to the other, and her eyes, usually so warm, were set firm. “Especially you, Billy. It’s a depressant on the nervous system, and that’s the last thing you need. Not to mention the legal side. And speaking of legal.”

Oh, no. No no _no_ -

Teddy had developed a very deer-in-the-headlights sort of look on his face. If they were prey then his parents were hunters, and they had Billy and Teddy in their sights. Billy finished with his laces but stayed with one knee on the floor, the cool of the linoleum seeping up through his jeans. “I shouldn’t need to remind you that while you’re technically no longer underage, you are both still very young, in the grand scheme of things. And there will probably be tents with children in them right next to yours. _Behave yourselves_. I assume I don’t have to explain what I mean in any detail?”

“No!” Billy yelped. “Please don’t!” His coffee must have started to kick in because the haze wrapped around the afternoon was clearing. Teddy had gone stiff and a red flush crept across his cheekbones.

Billy stood hastily, and from the way his face was burning he was pretty sure it could be seen from space. “We – uh. Get it. Yes. Thank you. Now can we promise to never have this conversation again?”

His father made a strangled sort of cough behind his fist. His shoulders were shaking, and when Billy glanced at him he could swear he saw, from the corner of his eye, his mom fighting back a smirk.

_Jerks._

“Get them out of here,” his mother said fondly, and she crossed the kitchen to kiss them on their foreheads. Teddy first, lightly, and he accepted the gesture of affection with a wistful little smile. Then it was Billy’s turn, and she cupped the back of his head wordlessly before letting him go. “I’ll feed the boys.” She turned to his dad as Teddy grabbed their coats from the closet. “Can you get milk on the way home?”

Everything was still heavy, the air thick and hard to move through, but even that cleared a little bit as they left the apartment. The door closed behind them and it was a jolt.

He could run back right now, back to the safety of four walls and his window, where he could watch and not have to _do_ , where everything was easier because it was familiar. Where he could avoid failing, because he did nothing.

Teddy’s free hand found his and squeezed, and after a heartbeat, Billy squeezed back.

He didn’t turn around.

 

**ii.**

The trip out to the campground was one of only a handful of times that Teddy had been in the Kaplans’ car, a beat-up old station wagon that still had lap belts in the back seat and smelled faintly of fabric freshener and old apple juice.

The first run had been more than six months ago (had it really been that long?), out to the apartment that he’d shared with his mother. The old beige carpet had been rough and familiar under his fingers, the only thing he’d really been able to process as Billy and Dr. K had worked to pack the remnants of his old life into a few dozen identical brown boxes. _Keep, toss, donate._

He’d only had room to take a few things to the Kaplans. The rest still marched in carefully labelled order across a back shelf in a storage unit that his mother’s life insurance settlement helped pay for. Waiting.

Billy wasn’t allowed to become another tape-sealed cardboard box.

Now, sitting in the back seat instead of the front, Dr. Kaplan fussing with the radio as he navigated Friday afternoon traffic, Teddy stretched his leg out along the bench seat. Billy stared out the window in a gesture that was too familiar, too soon. Something grabbed Teddy tight in the gut and squeezed, left him struggling for breath. “Hey.” Teddy poked him gently in the rib, and Billy turned. His eyes still had that lingering half-glazed over look to them, tinged with wariness. His body might have gotten out of that damned window two weeks ago, but a part of him still hadn’t caught up.

How had they gotten to this point, where Billy would look at him with uncertainty instead of gleeful conspiracy?

Teddy tugged at his arm and Billy followed his lead, the lap belt not stopping his slow topple sideways. When they settled, horns blaring outside and classic rock blaring inside, Billy was pressed against Teddy’s shoulder, warm and too skinny. His spine pressed against Teddy’s ribs, knobs that he could feel even through Billy’s t-shirt. He slipped his arm around Billy anyway, pressed back on the seat until they were nestled together as much as the belts would allow.

“You okay?” Teddy murmured low, his breath reflecting back at himself from the velvet-soft curve of Billy’s ear. The pause before Billy nodded, then the one before he shook his head – they told him more than anything, and he curled his arm tighter around Billy in response.

 “I’m so tired,” Billy replied after a minute, and it felt like a confessional.

“Sleep on me. We’ve got an hour.” Billy sighed softly, deeply, his whole body rising and falling with it. His head tipped to rest against Teddy’s shoulder, some of the tension leaving his body. Teddy ran his fingers down along Billy’s arm, along his side, stroking in careful, gentle circles.

He refused to count Billy’s ribs, or let himself think about the deeply shadowed divot of his collarbone. Billy's hand settled on his thigh. Teddy slipped his free hand over to cover it, loop their fingers gently together, and rest his thumb against the soft and steady thrum of the pulse in Billy’s wrist.

\--

It wasn’t evening yet by the time they got outside of the city proper, but the sky was getting darker in that moment of promise between day and sunset. The handful of scattered clouds tinged yellow and faint orange, hinting at more to come. Billy snored gently, and drooled on Teddy’s shoulder.

The side roads were clear enough and Dr. Kaplan hummed along half-tunelessly to some old Tom Cochrane B-side on the radio. There was a simplicity to it all, and if Teddy closed his eyes too, maybe he’d smell lavender oil instead of apple juice, and there would be Enya or Clannad on the tape deck. It was almost like it had been, almost close enough to something that could patch the hole down inside his ribs.

Billy breathed against him, the rise of his chest under Teddy’s arm a difference that he could be happy about.

He looked up when the music stopped; Dr. Kaplan glanced at him through the rear view mirror. He wasn’t humming any more.  

It was almost impossible to imagine calling him ‘Jeff’ when Billy called him ‘Dad’. But he and Mrs. K had said no last names, since he was basically their foster kid now, which left him ... with what? It was easier to default to not calling them anything specific at all, waiting to make eye contact accidentally before talking. It was easier when he was the only one in the car that Teddy could possibly be talking to.

Dr. K – Jeff – _Billy’s dad_ started talking first, saving him the decision. He cleared his throat, looked back at the road, his hands resting easily at ten-and-two. “Now that Tom’s left us,” he began. “And given everything that’s happened-“ His eyes met Teddy’s in the mirror again, as dark brown as Billy’s but with creases at the corners that Billy didn’t have yet.

He knew where the conversation was headed. It was easier to cut him off at the pass rather than make him say it.

“We’re done. We agreed, Billy and I.” The costumes were packed into the bottom of their closets, an orange, black and grey pile of spandex and the bright red of the cape that Billy loved so much.

He’d worn that stupid thing everywhere, even with jeans, even out onto the street. Teddy’d even indulged one of Billy’s sillier fantasies once, when they’d had a lair and they could steal some hours of privacy. There was still a stain up on the inside by the shoulder seam that the laundry couldn’t do anything about, and Billy refused to magic away.

He didn’t talk about that part to Billy’s dad.

“No more heroics.” It shouldn’t feel like defeat, to say that out loud. It was for the best. There were plenty of heroes around, most of them in New York, even, so it wasn’t like the city was suffering for a lack of costumed protection.

He’d been getting used to the idea, slowly. It made sense to step back, now. To let the grownups handle the things they were better trained for. To be normal kids for once.

As normal as it could get, knowing what they knew, now.

They’d been losing their way before this, before Doom, before Cassie and Jonas. They never talked about it. They probably should have.

Some nights, when the Cube was the only thing he could see when he closed his eyes, Teddy would sneak across the hall and slide in under Billy’s blue duvet. Other nights, he would wake up in his own bed, the world still dark, and find Billy plastered to his back, or curled up with his head tucked under Teddy’s chin, smelling of night sweat and the iron tang of fear.

When that happened, walking away hadn’t seemed so hard.

Then Ms. Marvel had come to Billy’s window. She had called and they had answered, pulled the uniforms out, and right there, he’d had this _surge_ of ‘yes good here we go,’ and the adrenaline had skidded rough and thrilling through his body.

Kate had smiled like she felt it as well, and Tommy.

Billy had looked at everything with tired eyes, smiled and nodded in all the right places. And nothing else.

Billy’s dad nodded now. He glanced at Teddy through the mirror with eyes that looked like Billy’s, then looked back out at the road, the trees and the sky. “We care about you, you know. Both of you. Very much.”

Teddy leaned his head back against the seat and rested his cheek against the top of Billy’s head. “I know. Thank you, for this. And-“ and he stopped.

“Wake Billy up,” his dad said, with a smile in the corners of his voice. “We’re almost there.”

He could get used to stale apple juice.

\--

Teddy waited until Billy’s dad was inside the campground office signing them in before he kissed Billy awake. Billy sagged into him, his weight solid on Teddy’s leg; Teddy’s toes tingled with the itch that would have been pins and needles if he had been someone else. The early summer heat and the close press of their bodies left a faint sheen of sweat on Billy’s forehead, damp on Teddy’s lips when he pressed them gently against Billy’s skin.

The salt pinged on his tongue when he moistened his lips. Billy curled closer, his bare forearm tight against Teddy’s side. Teddy ran his fingers down Billy’s arm, across the fine dark hairs that cast shadows on his skin. Billy stirred, muttered something incoherent against the rucked-up sleeve of Teddy’s t-shirt. He sat up, eyes still closed, and stretched, long, languid and slow. His shirt rode up with the lazy movement. It exposed his waist, the scattered dark trail below his belly button, the shadowed curve of his hipbone arcing up over the waistband of his shorts.

Teddy looked away as Billy settled, as he tugged his shirt down again and rubbed at his eyes. His heart was racing painfully, an ache settling a lot lower in his body than his heart. If he kept thinking along those lines then things were going to get awkward. More awkward. And not just because Billy’s dad was walking back out of the office with a paper map of the campsite.

The last time they’d had a chance to really be _alone_ had been in Wundagore, both of them exhausted and riding high on adrenaline and fear. If he’d known, then, that it was all going to go downhill so badly, maybe he would have done things differently. Taken longer. Focused on Billy properly instead of assuming they’d have more time, a chance to do more than find a little bit of comfort in the middle of chaos. 

He _definitely_ would have aimed a little higher than some sloppy kissing and a hand-job, no matter how much he loved the curl of Billy’s fingers, and the pressure of his thumb just under-

“Alright, boys, we’re ready,” Billy’s dad announced way too cheerfully as he opened the front driver’s side door of the car. Teddy jolted upright, and oh _God_ let neither of them have figured out what he’d been thinking about. But Billy only blinked blearily. His dad was busy frowning at the campsite map, too busy to notice Teddy slowly settling back down and resting his arms nonchalantly in his lap. _Nothing to see here; move along._

“You’re back along the lakeshore, and the manager said there’s no-one booked on either side of you for a few sites, so it should be nice and quiet,” Billy’s dad continued cheerfully, throwing the car out of park and turning down the drive that led down between the trees. “I expect that it’ll stay quiet,” he added knowingly, giving the pair of them a Look in the rearview mirror. Billy’s mouth actually twitched at the corners in something that might have wanted to be a smile.

“Yes, si- uh – yes,” Teddy replied, after a silent beat that Billy didn’t fill.

“No wild parties,” Billy added, and he looked more alive than Teddy had seen him in a while, the late afternoon sunlight leaving flickering shadows on his face as they passed under the arching trees. “Keep the explosions to daytime hours.”

 _That_ got a suspicious snort from the front seat, but it was followed by a dry “Thank you, that would be appreciated.” The car pulled in to their spot and stopped, and he turned with his arm on the back of his seat to fix them both with what wanted to be a steely glare. He wasn’t quite as good at it as Billy’s mom, but it wasn’t a half-bad attempt. Seven out of ten for style. “Don’t make me regret this.”

“No, sir.” Teddy opened the door and tumbled out as soon as Billy’s dad broke the look. He stopped on the grass, took a long, deep breath that filled his lungs and chased away the heaviness that had settled there. The site was small, surrounded by trees that reached dark silhouettes up toward the sky. There was room for two tents, probably, to nestle in beside the grilled-over firepit and the picnic table. Teddy’s little earth zit would leave them space to spare.

There was a lake down beyond the hill, though they’d have to go the long way around down the road to actually get to it. If he peered through the trees he could just barely make out the clearing that would be the next site over, but it looked like Billy’s dad had been right; there wasn’t anyone there. For tonight, at least, they’d have the space to themselves.

Maybe Billy would feel the change in the air the way he did, be able to let the smell of pine and grass wash away the city,  find some kind of peace in working with their hands to build themselves a temporary home.

Or maybe he’d turn around and find Billy and his dad both staring down into the open car at the tent bag, duffle and cooler and all the bits and pieces of useful junk that the Altmans had collected over the years.

His mom’s _thing_ for gadgetry had encompassed everything, the weirder and more specifically uni-purpose, the better. It had become a joke, as he got older; Teddy had scoured every camping and hardware store in their end of the city and still had to go online to find her the fold-out spoon-fork with attached cheese grater. And every time they’d hit the co-op, she’d buy another strange-and-stupid for their collection.

He still liked the collapsible marshmallow toasting forks best. Those were packed in the bottom of the cooler with the other plates and normal cutlery. They might be stupid, and kind of wobbly, but he couldn’t leave them behind. They’d be sad.  

Unpacking the car didn’t take long. Soon enough, he and Billy were knee-deep in stuff and the trunk was empty, Billy’s dad’s forehead creasing as he overthought things. _Some things were definitely genetic._ They looked more alike in their mannerisms than if you took them feature by feature. It was a little weird, watching the pair of them and seeing a half-wrong reflection of the kind of man Billy might become.

_Might have become, if he wasn’t also a reincarnated something or another with mystic connections to the very pulse of the universe. His boyfriend, ladies and gentlemen._

At the moment, he looked a whole lot like a Kaplan, hands in his pockets and head bowed a little bit, hair falling over his brow. Teddy itched to brush it back again.

“If you want me to stick around for a while, just to help you boys get set up,” Billy’s dad was saying, and Teddy shook his head. He should say yes, let Billy and his dad get in some bonding time or something, but- but this was supposed to be _their_ time, and the sooner it was just Billy and Teddy, as mean and awful at that sounded, the happier he’d be.

It took another half hour, a fight over the ground sheet and a run for a load of officially-bundled firewood before he finally said his goodbyes and drove away. That left Billy and Teddy alone – _finally_ – with a pegged-down tent facing in the right direction (after two tries, because really, Teddy _knows_ what direction the door is supposed to go, even if he _doesn’t_ have an MD), a partially-built wood teepee in the firepit, and a growing silence as the car engine sank into the distance.

Crickets buzzed somewhere nearby, and if he closed his eyes he could hear the harrumph of frogs somewhere in the distance. The sun had settled low, nestled tightly against the horizon, and if they didn’t move soon they’d be trying to start a fire in the dark.

“Grab the matches?” Teddy asked, the first thing he’d said since ‘goodbye.’ Billy startled, like he’d been somewhere else entirely, and knelt to fumble with the backpack flap.

They were alone now. It would be easy to go over there, to slide his fingers through Billy’s hair and brush it back, kiss his forehead again and mean it.

Except it wasn’t easy at all, because nothing was easy anymore. So by the time Billy had found the matches and was turning around with them, Teddy had a bag of marshmallows open and had already fired one across the campsite. It hit Billy square between the eyes, Billy’s hands flying up to block it a tenth of a second too slow. Teddy only had a second to think, _a month ago, he would have used his powers for that_ , before it was flying back at him and Billy was fighting a quirk of a smile.

He threw another one, aimed for Billy’s chest this time, and hit him dead center before Billy made it across the clearing. He grabbed for the bag and Teddy held it up, over his head and out of the way. Billy crowded against Teddy, his hand tight on Teddy’s shoulder where he braced himself to jump, but Teddy was taller even without shifting. “Oh, you think so?”

“I know so,” Billy grinned and pushed up on his toes, and then just for a second he was _glowing_ , that familiar, perfect, _brilliant_ blue, his feet up and off the ground. He snagged the bag with his fingertips, and his face fell.

The glow vanished, popped like a punctured balloon, and Billy was back down on the ground, his fingers digging tightly into the crinkling plastic bag. His jaw was set tight, his eyes stricken, tight and drawn and angry, with himself or with Teddy, or- _fuck fuck fuck._

Teddy grabbed the bag back, shoved a handful of marshmallows into his mouth and grinned widely. “No more until we finish making camp,” Teddy said, or tried to, his mouth crammed full and his throat way too dry. Three at once had been a major tactical error.

The laughter that bubbled up from inside Billy was a river, sunshine breaking through clouds after months of rain, bordering on something true and real. “Real smooth, Tee,” Billy said between snickers.

Billy was _laughing_ and whether that was a backlash hysterical reaction or something true, Teddy needed it like air, needed to keep seeing and hearing that sound, and feel it flowing over them both. Teddy worked his tongue around and stuck it out, a half-chewed marshmallow on the end. “Want one?” The words came out muffled but the gist of them must have gotten across, because Billy screwed up his face in a grimace and passed him a water bottle instead.

“That’s gross,” Billy informed him with a mock-serious face.

“You love me anyway.” Teddy waited until he’d managed to rinse most of the marshmallows down before reaching out to hook a finger through one of Billy’s belt loops and slowly reel him in. He had plenty of time to back out if he wanted to, if he didn’t see the look Teddy was giving him, or feel the heat between them the same way anymore. He had all the time in the world to step away, step back, and he didn’t.

A moment later they were nose to nose, and Teddy closed his eyes, leaned forward just enough to bump his forehead against Billy’s. He settled his hands on Billy’s hips, spanned them with his fingers; not as large as they could be, but fitting just right, just there, cupping the angles of Billy’s frame and holding him in place.

It was Billy who moved first, tipped his chin up and nudged against Teddy’s mouth. Nothing else moved, just their breath and the ghostly pressure of Billy’s lips on his. He couldn’t help it; he opened his mouth to Billy, pressed forward, kissed him properly and for _real_. Billy tasted like powdered sugar, warm and yielding, like longing and hope and _before._

But it wasn’t right. Billy was quiet, not forceful or needy like he shou - like he _used to be_ \- just... passive. Accepting. Still life with boyfriend.

He wanted to shout at him; to bare his throat and beg Billy to _take_ ; shake him until he reacted; drop to his knees and murmur promises into his skin-

He wanted a lot of things, none of which were right, or appropriate, or anything other than pathetic.

"Come on," he said instead, squeezed Billy's hips gently one more time, then stepped away. "I need to get the fire started. Then we can get something to eat."

 

**iii.**

Billy was used to seeing Teddy in the dark; the way his face shadowed under streetlights, pink or green  in the moonlight, or reflecting bursts of bright blue, magic painting the shadows of his skin. He looked different under this night sky, under these stars, the darkly glowing coals of the banked-down fire flaring and sputtering to life here and there as he poked at the embers. He hunched over with his elbows on his knees and stared into the remnants of the fire, his back a mass of shadow.

They had already bagged up the remnants of dinner – the crumpled tinfoil that had been wrapped around the potatoes, the empty beans and zoodles cans, charred around the sides where Teddy had stuck them directly into the hot coals to heat up, the marshmallow that had rolled off along the ridge until it was too covered with grime and pine needles to even bother trying to salvage.

There was nothing left to do, now, but sit and stare at the sky, or into the fire, and try to think of something to say. It shouldn’t be this hard, talking to Teddy. Or talking at all. He used to talk a lot more. He had to reign himself in more than anything, the words buzzing in his brain until he let them go, let them out to fly off into the sun.

Words had a lot more power than he knew, back then. If he wasn’t careful-

_Even when he was careful._

Somehow, he would manage to screw it up. Staying quiet was safer. Staying still was safest. If he didn’t move, didn’t breathe, he wouldn’t break something else precious and impossible to repair.

The log was getting uncomfortable under his butt, the air getting colder now that the sun was down. Goosebumps popped up along his arms and he stared at them for a minute, squinting in the near-dark. Teddy would be warm. He would pull Billy close in under his arm and hold him there, pressed tightly against his side. The heat of him would seep into Billy’s bones, where ice still lurked.

Teddy was sitting too far away. The couple of feet between them on the log might as well be miles, and he didn’t have the strength to move.

_You don’t deserve to be warm, anyway._

A light flashed in the trees, a little yellow ember blinking in the darkness. One, two. It stopped. _One, two, three four-_ it started again, two quick flashes, then nothing. Over and over it blinked, the count echoing in Billy’s mind as everything else faded away.

Teddy was watching him, the poker out of the coals.

“Firefly,” Billy said, his first word in a while, the shape of it rough in his throat. Teddy turned to look, the ruddy glow of the fire flickering down the length of his neck,

“There used to be a lot more of them here, when I was a kid,” Teddy replied, his voice gone distant and soft.

“More fireflies?”

“Yeah,” Teddy turned back, looked back at Billy instead of at the trees, and he scooted closer. Billy let him, then held his breath and shuffled over to close the final distance between them. A knot was digging into his buttcheek, but it hardly mattered. Teddy hesitated before draping his arm around Billy, a beat of indecision that stung.

_What did you expect? You’re losing him._

He was as warm as Billy imagined he would be, and if he pressed a little closer, maybe he could sink in under Teddy’s skin and vanish into him, be warm again forever.

“When I came up here with my mom, some nights there would be so many fireflies that they would light up the treeline. Sometimes they even flashed all together, a whole bush going up at once and then blinking out.” He curled his arm closely around Billy and Billy let his head fall to rest on Teddy’s shoulder, broad and strong enough to hold up the whole world.

“There aren’t as many, any more. It’s weird not seeing them.” Teddy continued, and even with his eyes closed Billy could hear the affection in his voice, feel the touch of warm air against his hair as Teddy brushed his lips there in a kiss. “I guess everything changes.” He stopped, then, his chest rising and falling with a soft internal sigh.

Teddy’s hand stroked up and down Billy’s arm under the cuff of his t-shirt, then stopped. “You’re freezing,” Teddy said accusingly, and then both arms were wrapped around Billy and Teddy’s body heat was seeping down through his skin like a balm. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It’s not that bad,” Billy put him off. “I don’t mind the cold. It’s refreshing.”

“You’re nuts,” Teddy replied, and his hands never stopped moving, stroking Billy’s goosepimpled arms. “Come on; the fire’s almost out, and we’ve got sleeping bags. It’ll be warmer inside the tent.”

It wasn't, not at first. Billy shucked his jeans and hauled on clean sweats, left his t-shirt on. He had to crouch down in the tiny dome tent, struggling to dress without mashing his head against the roof. Teddy had packed two sleeping bags but laid them out together, open on the air mattress like a bottom and top sheet. He eased in between them, the nylon lining slippery-slick and cool against his skin.

Teddy slid in beside him a moment later, the glow of the fire gone totally dark outside and the tent zipped shut against the night. The air mattress wobbled and sagged under their weight when he lay down, and rolled them both into the softer middle. Teddy laughed a little and Billy didn't hesitate, plastering himself against Teddy's side before he could think about it, or talk himself out of it.

Maybe he didn't deserve this, but he needed it. He needed the warmth along his front, the pressure of Teddy's arms snugging around him, the way the contact pulled him back into himself, dragging his mind out of a thousand little dark corners and down into his own body again.

Teddy's hands moved on his back, gentle, not insistent, a constant shifting pressure, first on his waist, then up to his spine, back down in soft sweeps. Billy burrowed his face into Teddy’s shoulder, breathed in the faint smell of detergent, Teddy’s deodorant, the smell of sweat dried onto his skin. Teddy’s pulse beat in the hollow of his throat. His shirt collar was pulling away from his neck thanks to the way he was lying, exposing the curve where it joined his shoulder. That was one of Billy’s favourite spots, and one of Teddy’s too. He liked Billy to scrape there with his teeth, and bite down just a little. It made his body shake and tense when Billy did that, his breath going rough and gaspy-

 _Oh. Where have_ you _been?_

 It had been... he couldn’t remember. It had been too long since he’d even wondered whether he’d _want_ to again, someday. Months, at least, since his body had seemed to need anything more than the occasional wet dream that left him frustrated and angry at unknown things when he woke up, cold and sticky.

Maybe they could. It had to have been on Teddy’s mind, when he planned the trip. And now they had time to be alone together, without parents or brothers getting in the way. He had to be feeling betrayed, and so neglected.

_And whose fault was that?_

He wasn’t going to think about that, either. He’d promised, half-formed assurances that he would try not to sink again, not to let the darkness in even as it stalked around the fortress that Teddy had built from nylon, poles and the bulwark of his body.

Billy kissed Teddy’s shoulder, and Teddy’s breath caught. That was better than thinking. He tipped his head back, like he had outside, moved his mouth to Teddy’s again. Teddy’s lips were dry and sweet, no pressure for more than just this, tasting his mouth and the sugar-lightness of it.

He sounded a little drunk when he spoke. The easy rhythm of Teddy's hands, the warm bubble they'd made under the sleeping bag, the bone-deep exhaustion that never seemed to go away no matter how much he slept - all of it rolled together to make his voice muzzy and stuck. "Was this your grand plan?" He tried to make it come out teasing and light, but he couldn't quite remember what that sounded like. "Get me alone for uninterrupted make-out time?"

"Not exactly," Teddy protested, but Billy tangled his legs with Teddy's and pulled his hips in, in a moment of boldness and muscle memory, and Teddy's breath stuttered again, just like that. "Maybe a little," Teddy confessed, and he brushed his lips across Billy’s mouth, his jaw, his ear. "In my defense, your mom's had her radar turned up again since-"

He faltered, but Billy knew what he had been going to say. S _ince you got off the windowsill_. _Since you turned back into a real boy_. _Since we could start pretending again that nothing's wrong._

"She's uncanny like that," Billy agreed, instead of saying any of those things. He rolled onto his back, sort of, the air mattress flexing and shifting to accommodate. Teddy rolled with him, mostly by accident, partly because of Billy’s arms locked around his waist. Teddy ended up on top of him, and this close, even in the dark, Billy could see the way his eyes widened in surprise. The curl of warm was still there, soft and low in his gut. Teddy was sunshine and fire, the promise of heat, and that was enough to reach for. Billy was the moth, in this case, circling and wishing and finally daring-

He opened his mouth for another kiss, this time with tongues and his hands slipping up underneath Teddy’s t-shirt to stroke along the ridge of his spine, the muscles of his back, then out from the t-shirt and down along his arms. He was so... _Teddy_ , all mathematically perfect angles and parabolas, and he tasted better than anything in the world.

Teddy groaned, low in his throat, and when he rocked down against Billy he was hard. It was impossible to miss, the slow drag of the layers of cotton between them only adding to the sensation.

It was good. That is, it _would_ be good, if he could get his head out of the clouds and stop thinking, be less aware of the wind outside, the buzz of the crickets, the way Teddy was moving against him in a slow and easy rhythm that should have him arching back into it, pressing into him. That was fine, but the long, slow, wet and lazy kisses were better, and so were Teddy's fingers laced through his, hands locked together, pressing down into the cushion of air under them.

It was good.

It probably should have been better. It had been different before, sharp and sparking-bright and impossible to ignore. Now the feeling was all muffled and hazy, his dick sort of interested but only sitting around half-mast in his sweats. By now he should have his fingers in Teddy's hair or down the back of his shorts, be squeezing his eyes closed to try and keep himself under control, not lying there and staring blindly up at the roof of the tent and wondering if he was ever going to get hard again.

Or maybe _that_ was broken too, and this pleasant ache and twist was the most turned-on he'd ever feel? Just one more thing drowned out in fog and shadow and mental bubble wrap.

 _You can’t even do_ this _right._

 _“Billy_.”

He'd been still too long, back in his head too long. Teddy was rolling off him to lie at his side, brow furrowed and his voice thick with concern. The air was cold along Billy’s body and he turned over to get back into safety. But Teddy just cupped his cheek and frowned at him, traced Billy’s lower lip with his thumb. “Are you okay? You totally zoned out.”

“I’m fine,” Billy insisted, the lie not entirely a lie. He was as fine as he deserved to be. “I got distracted, that’s all.”

“Gee, thanks,” Teddy deadpanned, and Billy should laugh and make a joke there, but he couldn’t think of one.

Teddy waited a beat, then kept talking when Billy didn’t take his cue. “Is something wrong? If you don’t want to, Bee, then we won’t. If you’re not into it tonight-“

“I’m into it,” Billy protested, but Teddy stayed tense.

He couldn’t make words, not ones that mattered. The wrong words had been his problem all along. Billy reached for him instead, ran his hands down Teddy's chest, the muscles bunching and tensing under his fingertips. He tried to _will_ himself to want, to find that surge of lust that would burn him up and fix everything. His heart ached and he wanted to bury himself under Teddy's skin and never come out, but the rest of his body wasn't paying attention.

A little lower, then, and Teddy was still half-hard, swollen against the cotton of his pajama pants. He flinched against Billy's thumb when Billy circled the wet spot with his fingers. Then Teddy relaxed and his hands were moving again, sliding down Billy’s sides, running down along his bony hip to flatten over his groin. His fingers splayed loosely across the place where Billy’s hard-on wasn’t. Teddy stopped moving.

“It’s fine,” Billy insisted, and he stroked Teddy through his pajamas to make the point. “I’ll catch up.” He probably wouldn’t. The flicker was gone now, replaced with a nervous flutter and the reassuring weight of Teddy’s erection under his hand. That, at least, was something familiar and nice. He could get Teddy off, stroke him and maybe suck him, and then at least _Teddy_ would get something out of the night. He’d be happy with Teddy’s arms around him again, to sleep safe, with Teddy at his back to keep the nightmares at bay-

Teddy caught his wrist and stopped him, and he’d screwed up again. Even when he was trying not to, to do right by Teddy, to give him what he wanted, what they both usually wanted- he still managed to screw it up.

“Billy, _stop_.” Teddy sat up and pulled his shirt back down, his pants back up, and flopped down beside Billy again, lacing their fingers together. “You’re not okay with this, _obviously_. You’ve been on another planet all evening. I’m not going to do anything that you’re not a hundred percent on board with. Ever.”

“I am on board with this.” Billy protested, but Teddy’s jaw was set. He’d decided something and he wasn’t letting Billy in on it, and that wasn’t _fair._ “Just because I’m not... because I’m _broken_ or something; it doesn’t mean I don’t want to make you feel good. Let me be a good boyfriend for once. I haven’t been, in a long time.”

“That’s not fair. It shouldn’t be just about me. This-“ Teddy gestured back and forth between them, his nose bumping the end of Billy’s nose, and his hand resting tentatively on Billy’s hip. “It’s supposed to be about _us_. Not just one of us getting off.”

“You can’t tell me you’re not blue-balling it right now.”

Teddy winced, laughed, shook his head. “Shut up,” he replied fondly, and that was better than getting lectured at. “It’s cool, Bee,” he continued, but his voice was a little sad. “Anyway, it’s a lot more fun when you’re not off on Jupiter, or wherever.” 

“Let me do this for you tonight,” Billy offered, and he flattened his hand against Teddy’s chest. Nothing more than that until he said yes again, but the contact was enough, driving back the cold that lurked down in the marrow of his bones. The more he could touch, the more skin on skin, the more heat and fire he could make – dead men couldn’t do that. The walking dead never felt warm. Teddy’s skin was everything good and real and vital, and maybe it would warm him through enough to make him feel _real_ for longer than a few minutes. “Call it an IOU for a blowie later, or something, if that makes you feel better. But I wantto do this.”

Teddy covered Billy’s hand with his own, his lower lip curling in. He chewed on it for just a second before letting it go again. “You're sure. It’s not because... I dunno. You think you have to.”  

Billy arched an eyebrow. Could Teddy even see it? “You're seriously turning me down?”

Teddy hesitated, then shook his head. “No. I mean – yes. I’m not turning you down. Billy, I want-“ his voice went all shaky, and Billy hadn’t even touched him again, beyond the hand pressed solidly to the middle of Teddy’s chest. “I miss you,” Teddy whispered. “So bad.”

“I’m here,” Billy promised recklessly, letting his hand drift down between them again and pressing his mouth to Teddy’s. He caught him in mid-word, slipped his tongue between Teddy’s lips and _reached_ inside himself- was there anything there?

Teddy’s mouth was warm and slick, sweet and tender, everything that was real and right. Billy could die there, perfectly happy. Teddy’s cock hardened in Billy’s palm as he stroked it, his hand down between Teddy’s body and the elastic of his pajamas, and he pushed the pants down inelegantly.

Teddy’s cock was gorgeous, heavy and full, slightly curved and hot in his hand. He’d be flushed; Billy couldn’t see in the dark, but he knew, memory curling back in tentative wisps. His skin was ridiculously soft, silk and velvet, and his foreskin – still new and fascinating, the way it slid, slick and easy – gliding over Teddy’s cockhead in the tight hold of Billy’s fist.

Something stirred, that spark flaring up again as he stroked Teddy, kissed him and sucked at his lip. It wasn’t enough to chase, no white-hot burst of lust; just grounding, contentment. Something close to peace.

What was better was hearing Teddy gasp again, re-learning the way he curled over when he got close to coming. Tugging at Teddy’s earrings with his teeth was one of his favorite things, the metal cool and round under the tip of his tongue, smooth between his lips when he dragged back then let the rings go with a slick pop. He bit down at that spot on Teddy’s shoulder, felt the skin give a little between his teeth. Teddy shuddered, full-bodied and needy, then came all over Billy’s fist. He shook and bit back sound so that nothing came out but a laugh, and a long, low groan that sounded a bit like Billy’s name.

Teddy collapsed onto his back and Billy fumbled for something to clean him with. It was probably his t-shirt that ended up sticky and tossed into the corner when he was done wiping his hand and Teddy's stomach, but it hardly mattered.

The darkness still prowled around the corners, waiting with its weights and stones to drag Billy down again, hold his head below the water until breathing became impossible. But for a moment, just this one, he could ignore it.

Arms slipped around his waist. Billy let Teddy pull him back down and tug the sleeping bag back over them both. Billy grabbed the edge as it came close, hauled it up and over their heads, until they were huddling together beneath it, arms and legs tangled. A feather-light touch on his head had to be Teddy's lips, pressing a kiss into Billy’s hair before he spoke. “We'll be okay, you know.”

He sounded so sure, on the surface, but there was a tremble underneath it that he might have missed. Now, though, half-naked and wrapped around each other, closer to Teddy than he had been in months and _months-_ he caught it. But what was he supposed to say, or do? Kissing it better only worked on little kids. 

"How can you be so sure?" Billy asked, because silence was a bad thing; they’d established that already. And maybe Teddy would have an answer for both of them.

“Because we won't let this thing win.” Teddy said it like it was already a surety, his chin tight against the top of Billy’s head, and just like that the tremble was gone. “We're already two in a million, Bee. We're superheroes. This mood you’ve been in, your depression... It's like fighting Swarm. It's just one more bad guy we can't punch in the face. Doesn't mean it can't be beaten.”

He was good at that; at saying things in that Captain America kind of way where he made you _want_ to believe everything he said, no matter how dumb.

Billy wanted to believe.

But that word made his teeth clench and his stomach churn. It was supposed to make things easier, once you had a name; slap a content label on a guy and send him on his way, the sum total of his diagnoses and flaws.

Some labels were useful; some bought you time out of school without destroying any future chances at college. But then came ‘talk therapy’ and more eyes, always watching, judging, seeking out the fracture lines and weak points to poke at them again and _again_. And then drugs, numbing and suppressing, _inhibiting_ , and he’d had enough of that to fuel a lifetime of nightmares.

He wasn’t using his powers. He wasn’t ever going to be a hero. They had no reason to cram his head full of cotton (again) and kill pieces of his brain (again), or leave him ‘normal.’ By which they meant helpless.

Some labels were useful. Some were the beginning of the end of everything.

"You want to arrest my bad mood,” Billy forced the joke, the D-word skittering away from him, unusable.

Teddy didn’t comment. “If that's what it takes,” he said easily, instead. “We'll call Dr. Strange when we get home. Maybe he's got a trap that'll work. They made mood rings in the sixties, right? Why not mood traps?”

“You're exceptionally weird.”

"This shouldn't be news.” Teddy grabbed Billy’s chin and tugged him up into a kiss that turned into a yawn, and then a laugh when Billy licked inside Teddy’s open mouth. “Yuck. Thank you so much.” He detangled his legs and curled up around Billy, making Billy the little spoon, his arm draped possessively across Billy’s hip. “Sun’ll be up early,” he yawned again. “Longest day of the year. Try and get some sleep?”

“I will,” Billy promised, and fought the urge to tense. Their nest of blankets was warm, Teddy was warmer, and though he had no reason to believe it, the nightmares felt very far away. Billy relaxed, cradled in Teddy’s arms, and let darkness close over him. 

 

**iv.**

Billy was still asleep when Teddy opened his eyes in the morning. The sun had crept up on them and the tent was beginning to get muggy, the dew that speckled the roof and walls burning away in the early summer heat. Billy had rolled away from Teddy in his sleep and was draped face-down, his legs hanging off the air mattress. He took up more volume when he slept than any human being should be able to, especially a skinny one. He just sort of... expanded his points and corners to fit all the available space in the bed, like gas in a vacuum.

It was a habit that Teddy would gladly get used to, no matter how many times he ended up being used as a pillow, or a mattress, or a life-sized teddy bear.

The soft light filtering through the tent cast a faint glow over Billy’s features, tinted blue and green. His lips were parted, soft and plush, his long dark lashes sweeping curves against the angle of his cheek. He was beautiful like this, wrapped in the tentative peace of sleep, even though his forehead never seemed to completely un-furrow anymore. He could brush it clear, reach out and smooth Billy’s brow with his thumb, wipe away the tightness that followed him even down into his dreams.

That would wake Billy up, though, and he was so tired all the time. It would be better to let him sleep. Teddy could be happy like this as well, lying in bed with the world slowly stirring to life around them, watching the slow rise and fall of Billy’s back as he breathed.

Except that nature was calling too loudly to ignore, and Teddy slid out from under Billy as carefully as he could manage. Birds were singing in the trees as he unzipped the tent and stepped out into the clear, clean morning.

He’d put the fire out before he’d gone to bed the night before, so first order of business once he’d taken care of necessities was to get that going again. Then food, and then-

He faltered, unsure.

There hadn’t been a plan beyond ‘get Billy out of the city,’ and part of him had hoped that once they’d gotten here it would all just fall into place. Billy would relax, and be able to let go of everything that he’d been clinging onto with a death grip. Even if it was just for a day.

It did seem to be helping. Billy had been chattier last night, funnier and more alive at some points than he’d been in months. And other times, he’d closed off and gone all-but-invisible, sinking down into some pit inside himself that Teddy couldn’t see.

There was a deck of cards in his bag, left over from the last trip he'd taken with his mom, and he'd grabbed the pair of DSes from the pile of stuff in Billy's room. So there was always that. Except that it was cheating to go camping and spend the time playing video games. He could _hear_ his mother, see her if he closed his eyes. Her hands were on her hips and her hair was pulled up into a messy weekend ponytail, and she was laughing. _Theodore Rufus Altman! I did not just rent a car and drive for two hours so that you could sit on your butt and kill pixels._

The pain stuck him through, sharp and fierce in the center of his chest and he could die from it, just from this, the loss and the echo in the hollow-empty. His eyes stung and he blinked the tears back, swallowed the spike-edged lump in his throat.

Billy would want coffee when he woke up. It was still the first thing he reached for in the mornings, stumbling out of his room bleary-eyed and messy-haired. That was something easy. He could do that.

The fire didn't take long to get going, now that he had the hang of it again. By the time the bottled water was bubbling in the old aluminum cooking pot on the grate, Billy was unzipping the tent and staring around the campsite like he wasn't entirely sure how they'd gotten there.

The coffee slopped over the side of the chipped yellow mug when Teddy pressed it into Billy's hands, but he didn't seem to notice. "It's instant," Teddy apologized, but that seemed to be acceptable to the shambling mound, as half the cup was drained before Billy managed to find the log and sit. 

The scruff was growing in around Billy’s chin again, dark and patchy in that teenager sort of way. He used to like it, the dark shading it added and the prickly feel. He had liked the contrasting textures of the stubble and Billy’s skin against his lips when they kissed, and the way it squared off his jawline, even if it was still growing in a bit uneven. It was a sign of what Billy would look like someday. Handsome, powerful, refined-

Billy groaned and upended his mug, squinted into the empty interior like he was taking personal offense. “Where’d the coffee go?” he muttered plaintively, mostly to himself. His eyes opened a little wider, though, and he looked more alive as the caffeine kicked in.

Maybe 'refined' was the wrong word.

Now, the stubble was the enemy. They’d only just woken up; Billy might be planning to shave later. But that was an excuse he’d trotted out in mumbles and hand-waving before. One more thing he hadn’t ‘gotten around to.’ One more sign of his disaffection, disconnection and disinterest.

One more reminder of the days when Billy had stopped caring about anything at all.

Time for a pre-emptive strike.

Teddy stood, trailed his fingers across the back of Billy’s neck as he passed by, and found the pop-tarts in the cooler. Not that they needed to be cooled; the sealed cellophane packages would probably survive the next three apocalypses entirely unscathed. Just them and the roaches. Billy’s stuff was in the duffle right inside the tent door, clothes piled on top of the rest of their gear. “Do you have a razor in your kit?” Teddy asked over his shoulder, already digging through the stuff he’d packed to find the black nylon bag that held Billy’s toothbrush and soap.

“Yeah, probably,” Billy called back. Then, after a pause, a more suspicious, “Why? You don’t need to shave.”

Teddy turned, still kneeling. Billy sat on the log with his head cocked, hair flopping in his face and the stubble smearing dark dirt-lines across his face. “No,” he agreed. “But you do.”

He got a wrinkled nose back in response, and Billy scratched at his chin and cheek like he hadn’t noticed the growth. “Oh. I thought maybe I’d just skip it while we’re here-“

“No,” Teddy interrupted. Billy’s bag was at the bottom – of course – and Teddy grabbed it before standing again.

“Not a good look?” Billy laughed a little but still looked confused, tracking Teddy as he moved around the campsite. Clean water, a bowl, package of wipes- it would do.

“Nope.” And that was all Teddy could trust himself with saying, in case he started talking and couldn't stop. “C'mere.”

Billy sat cross-legged on the ground in front of him, and Teddy squirted a little bit of shaving cream into the palm of his hand. It spread and grew there, a little white mountain smelling faintly of mint. He stuck two fingers into the foam, cool and almost nothing substantial there at all. Billy watched him, then his eyes fluttered closed.

Teddy stroked the white foam across Billy’s cheeks, all angles and sharp planes. He’d lost those last few signs of baby fat a lifetime ago.

The crappy plastic razor wasn't going to give the best shave ever, but Teddy's hands were steady and perfect wasn’t the point. He cradled Billy's jaw, fit his fingers along the side of his throat, felt the place where his pulse beat, hummingbird-fast. Billy lifted his chin without hesitation, eyes closed and waiting. The breeze played with the ends of his hair, lifted and toyed with it. It brushed, silk-soft, against Teddy's knuckles. 

He drew the razor along Billy's jawline, light and sure.

Billy hummed softly, eyes still closed. "I thought you liked the scruff.”

"I do, sometimes.” Not today. Teddy rinsed the razor in the bowl and made another pass, another clean line beside the first.

"Is this a new fetish? Is shaving going to be a thing? Because I could get into that. Probably. Depends what you want to shave."

"Stop talking unless you want me to slip." It was a tease, said lightly. Billy went quiet under his hands. How could he explain it, in words that would make sense? The dark stain of Billy’s starter beard was invisible, covered with white, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted it _gone._ “Please. Just let me do this?”

The smooth slide of the razor was a prayer, the clean skin it revealed with every long, slow stroke a fervent ‘amen.’ Teddy ran his fingertips over the places where the razor had been, damp and pink, stripped bare for him. Billy tipped his head back further, up to face the sky. Teddy held his breath as he drew the flimsy grey disposable along the sinew and line of Billy's throat.

He smoothed Billy’s face with his hands, soothing away the tension and the grief. Billy sat with his eyes closed, lashes casting dark shadows against his skin. The white of the foam cast him in shades of olive by contrast, not tanned but darker than Teddy regardless.

Water to rinse, and there. Not perfect, but better. The dark brown pinpricks were gone, with nothing but a few traces of foam to prove they had ever existed. Teddy swiped his thumb along the last little line of white behind Billy’s ear, wiping the evidence away.

Billy had sunk down into himself again, barely breathing, not moving.  

This still, calm boy; it wasn't the Billy he knew. Billy should crackle, charged with electricity and life, lightning and fire. There were flashes of him now and again, little glimpses that promised that he was still there, buried under the weight of grief and guilt and a thousand other things that Teddy couldn’t begin to understand.

Teddy dropped the razor and the bowl, let them fall to the ground. He memorized Billy’s face with his fingertips, every curve and jut and line, then pressed a kiss, chaste and gentle, against his lips. Billy made a soft noise, the barest exhalation as proof that he had noticed.

“Where are you?” Teddy murmured, soft against Billy’s lips. He sank his hands into Billy’s hair, fighting the urge to kiss him and keep on kissing him until he came back home. His eyes pricked and burned, and he scrubbed his face against his shoulder to wipe it clean.

That won him a slow smile. “I’m here,” Billy answered just as softly, their faces half an inch apart and his breath hot on Teddy’s lips. “I’m sorry.”

“Not half as sorry as you’re going to be if you don’t start talking to me soon,” Teddy threatened, keeping his voice steady and kind, not letting his gaze wander from Billy’s face. “I want to know where you go when you vanish, Bee. Don’t go where I can’t follow.” The quote seemed appropriate. _Don’t leave me here alone._

A smile curled up one corner of his mouth and he opened his eyes, walnut-dark. “I’m glad you’re with me, Sam,” Billy replied, a glint of humor there. The soft laugh bubbled out of Teddy before he could catch it and bottle it down.

Billy leaned in and kissed the laugh out of his mouth. He set his hands against Teddy’s chest and splayed his fingers wide, hung on for support as they sat on the ground, knees pressed together.

A car horn blared somewhere in the distance and the illusion of isolation shattered, the moment gone. Teddy sank into Billy’s mouth one more time, kissed and drank him in before pulling back.

“Your favorite debate topic,” he began, and Billy arched an eyebrow. “ _Were_ Frodo and Sam getting their freak on?”

Billy snorted, and the smile that flashed across his face was genuine. “Are you kidding? Absolutely.” His expression was so much like the old Billy that Teddy melted, a floodgate opening somewhere inside.

The next laugh came more easily, triggered by Billy’s smile. “Do you remember that time you and Eli fought about it?”

“I thought he was going to spontaneously combust.”

“Side effect of the super-soldier serum. Spontaneous human combustion when reaching peak irritation levels.” Teddy sat in the memory, exhaustion that went beyond the physical finally catching up with him. Everything was _funny_. “When you said that thing about ‘hairy foot fetishes,’ and he made this little _broken_ kind of sound-“

Billy’s shoulders shook, his laughter rare and clear and _everything_. He swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing with it, and his fingers curled tightly into Teddy’s shirt. Teddy reached out and pulled Billy into his lap without a second thought, settling him so that he straddled Teddy’s knees, their chests pressed close.

Billy sagged into him, wrapped his arms around Teddy and held on as though Teddy were an anchor. Dampness soaked in to Teddy’s shirt collar; Billy was crying, silent tears trickling slowly down his face. When was the last time he had actually _cried_?

“I miss them, Teddy,” he whispered after a minute. Teddy’s arms closed tighter around Billy and held on. “I miss them all so much.”

“I know, Bee,” Teddy replied, because he did. He buried his face in Billy’s shoulder and let him cry, his own eyes pricking hot and tired.  Locked tight in Billy’s arms, Billy’s weight holding him down so that he wouldn’t shatter, Teddy drew in a single ragged breath and let the water well up in his own eyes. “I do too.”

 

**v.**

The heaviness started in Billy’s gut, just above his stomach, below his heart. It twisted up and spread tendrils out along his limbs, prickling and sparking, leaving numbness behind. It sat there in the middle, all spikes and lead, weighing him down until movement – even just turning his head – was too much effort. Maybe it would go away again, if he lay here; if he moved, the sparks would flare again, and more of him would die.

The morning had started better than a lot of them; he’d gotten out of bed without thinking about it. It didn’t make him any more of a productive member of society, but it was a start. Go, him.

So there had been that. And coffee. Two good things. Look at him, listing them off like a good boy.

_It won’t help._

_Shut up._

Talking to Teddy. Three, maybe? It had gotten weird and stupid; he had snotted all over Teddy’s shirt and while Teddy _said_ he didn’t mind, that didn’t mean it was actually true. But he’d also said ‘talk to me’ and Billy had, so _that_ was something. And Teddy had looked so proud of him, after.

They’d hung upside down on the kiddy climber with the flaking red paint, eaten two boxes of strawberry pop-tarts between them, and he’d almost started to believe that it was going to be a good day.

He should know better than to hope, to name his wishes. He broke everything he touched and those were no different.

Blades of grass stuck into his skin, pricked and poked at his bare arms and calves.

He should be doing something.

What?

That was the key, wasn’t it; there were all kinds of things... there had to be all kinds of things that needed doing. He could-

_What’s the point?_

He could lie here and feel the weight of the blue sky pressing down on him, crushing his chest like there was an elephant sitting on it. His fingers and toes were heavy and thick with it. The sun was out, shining on him, but he was still cold.

Invisible elephants and cold sun; yeah. There was a reason he didn’t like talking about it. There was no way to explain; it sounded too dumb when he tried.

He had every reason to be happy, especially compared to what some people had gone through. Tommy and Teddy both coped okay, smiled and laughed, got out of bed and brushed their teeth without it taking an act of God to motivate them. Billy was the only sad, pathetic loser who couldn’t seem to get it together.

A shadow crossed the sun, and Billy squinted up at it. Teddy stood over him, towel draped over his shoulder. That worried frown was back on his face; it was even more disappointed in him from upside down.

Crashing hadn’t been in the plan. Lunch had, and a hike or something, and it would be fun. It could be fun, if he could move. But the sky was too heavy and he was too tired, and Teddy would have more fun without him anyway.

“I’m going up to the showerhouse,” Teddy said finally, when Billy didn’t speak. “Are you coming?”

_He’ll leave you if you don’t stand up_

He wouldn’t.

_He will. He wanted to go hiking and you’ve screwed up all his plans. Again._

I wouldn’t be any fun. I’d just mess up the hike for him.

_He didn’t sign up for this, you know that. He doesn’t want to be the one responsible for lugging your useless carcass around._

He _proposed_. He knew what he was getting into.

_It was out of pity, shock treatment to get you moving. He hasn’t said anything about it since, has he?_

He would never-

_He would, and you know it. So move already._

I can’t.

“Later,” Billy lied. Teddy left without a word.

\--

He came back later with his hair wet and his t-shirt sticking to him in patches. Billy had gotten as far as sitting up, his knees tucked up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them to hold himself in.

Teddy’s face was in motion, like a shift he couldn’t control, flickering between you-have-disappointed-me and thank-god-you’re-still-here. That he had been the one to put those faces on Teddy was another thing to add to his bad-day list. It was a lot longer than the other one.

The sun beat down on his shoulders, warm on the surface, making the grass glow green-golden. The tent zipper purred behind him, once, twice, then Teddy’s solid bulk settled down beside him. He didn’t put his arm around Billy and asking for it was impossible. Teddy crossed his legs and rested his elbows on his knees, staring at him. “This wasn’t part of the deal.”

He knew.

Teddy shifted where he sat, curled one leg underneath him, restless. “I agreed to put the costumes away, to quit the Avengers. But you have a side of the bargain to keep up as well. And maybe it was a dumb idea, but you agreed, Bee. You said you’d try.”

He _was_ trying; he just wasn’t good enough. “I’m here, aren’t I?” Billy tried, his voice catching, rough.

“Not really,” Teddy replied, and he hooked his finger in the loop of Billy’s shoelace. He was like that, always touching, always reaching out to be sure that Billy was... real? There? There was no way to ask what it meant. “Your body is, but your mind is a million light years away again.”

He had come back from the showerhouse wearing a clean shirt, not the one that Billy had destroyed this morning. He wouldn’t be happy if Billy got gross all over this one too. But he had said ‘thank you’ after, as though Billy had done something worthwhile.

Teddy loved him. He wanted him to get better, and probably not just because Billy was being a terrible excuse for a partner.

There were words churning inside him, potent, dangerous, dark words that would make terrible things real. If he said them aloud, there would be no taking them back. Teddy would know exactly how screwed up he was, would know exactly how much of a disaster loving him would continue to be.

He would know, and the blackness inside Billy would expand once it was out, and it would engulf them both. And Teddy would be right to run.

But Teddy didn’t run. Not away from dangerous things, anyway. He stood strong and faced them down; he had pulled Billy out of darkness before, saved him and kept him close. If he could tell anyone, then he could tell Teddy. He had to say something, anything, even just a little. He could tell him a little without letting the tide wash him away.

“It's not out there, it’s _inside_.” The words dragged out of him, too slowly, each one a pulled tooth. “A black hole is dragging me in, all the time. I don’t have the energy to fight it.” He slammed his mouth closed.

_You’re not tired, that’s just an excuse. Always making excuses._

Teddy tugged on his shoelace, wound the string tightly around his fingers until Billy’s foot dragged across the couple of inches between them. His leg ended up pressed against Teddy’s, and Teddy rested his hand on Billy’s ankle. “I'm not too tired.”

 _Not yet, but you will be_.

“I'll never stop fighting for you. But you’ve _got_ to talk to someone about it.”

His hand was dry and warm, warmer than Billy’s skin, his hand broad enough to wrap most of the way around. He was a tether, a grounding wire, and Billy didn’t pull away. “I am talking.”

“And I’m glad. But I mean to more than just me. A doctor. This-“ Teddy gestured, encompassing everything that Billy was and said. “This is something too big for just us.” He was coaxing, the kind of voice someone would use on a small animal, or a little kid.

“And do what?” Billy raised his voice, the blackness surging up inside and making it hard to focus. It wouldn’t help, and then there would be nothing left on the list to try, and everyone would finally realize that he was utterly beyond fixing. “It wouldn’t change anything.” Nothing could alter the past, the things he’d done, the danger he posed to everything and everyone around him just by being what he _was_.

“You’re being stupid,” Teddy growled at him. His hand tightened on Billy’s ankle, not enough to hurt – never that – but enough to make him pay attention. “It’s not about changing the past, Billy. It’s about fixing whatever stupid wiring’s gotten crossed inside your brain.”

Teddy’s hand was hot on his skin, too hot, and Billy pulled his ankle back in a surge of sharp strength. “There’s nothing to fix!”

He had to make him see, had to make him understand, but the words wouldn’t come. Not the right ones, at least. The wrong ones burst out of him instead, a dozen shards of shrapnel flying out at the speed of sound. “A doctor can’t bring Cassie and Jonas back from the dead. A _doctor_ can’t go back in time and stop me from going to Latveria in the first place. Even time travel to fix it would just screw things up further; and that’s not even a guess. We saw _exactly_ what would happen, thanks to Nate.”

Nate, who had been the first among them, and the first one to fall. He had seen the future and tried to change it anyway, and all it had gotten him was pain. How could he be sitting here moaning to Teddy about being _sad_ when Nate was _gone_ , when Cassie and Jonas were _dead_ -

When _Billy_ was the one-

He had to find the way to shape the sounds, force them out somehow. But when he tried, they lodged in his throat, solid, choking things that blocked his air.

_You can’t. You can’t even say it; where are your words now?_

Stop it.

“There's a voice in the back of my head all the time, Teddy. I can't shake it loose, or argue. It knows every stupid thing I've ever said or thought or done. It remembers every time I've ever screwed up, and the moment I start thinking maybe – _maybe_ I can get over this – it’s _my own voice_ reminding me of every detail. It's a perfect three-d video record of Billy Kaplan's greatest fuck-ups, and it’s on a constant loop.”

He ran out of air, then, gasped for it. It was the most he'd said about anything, to anyone, and his throat burned thick with bile.

_Now you've done it._

The tightness hit Billy squarely in the chest, where the spiked ball sat. It expanded and pressed out on his lungs until he couldn’t breathe, black streaks closing in around the edges of his vision.

_Totally hopeless. There’s nothing anyone can do, he’ll never understand, and if he does, he’ll despise you. Weakling. Pathetic. You may as well give up._

Stop it, stop it, _stop._

 _How many more times are you going to lose control? How many more times will someone get hurt, or_ die _because of you?_

please stop

_I want to die. I’m so tired. It would be easy._

He was going to suffocate if he didn’t start breathing, his heart was going to explode in his chest, or implode under the pressure of his lungs. Maybe it was a secondary mutation, something horrible and dark lurking, waiting for when he was weak and alone and-

**_“BILLY.”_ **

He sucked in air, gasped with it, the block in his lungs and heart easing only for a second. Teddy was staring at him and shaking his head, his mouth was moving but the only thing Billy could hear was the rush of blood in his ears.

There were hands on his shoulders, far larger than they should have been, pressing him down, penning him in. Teddy was green and Teddy was large, and Teddy had ruined another t-shirt.

“Breathe,” Hulkling ordered him, and Billy tried. He pulled in air through his nose, tried to fill his lungs. The pressure on his shoulders was firm and unrelenting, and the black edges on the world started to fade.

_Safe. Teddy's keeping me safe. Nothing can get me._

His chest still hurt, a throbbing weight that would never, ever go away.

The green faded back to pink, the pressure lessened, as Teddy shrank back to human form. His hands stayed wrapped around Billy and his eyes never left Billy’s face.

Breathing ached, _exist_ _ing_ ached.  How did it go? In through the nose. He could remember that part. In. Out. In.

“I’m trying.” Billy breathed out. His face was wet but he couldn’t remember how it got that way. The sun had moved in the sky, drifted past the apogee, and Billy tried to remember what his heart rate was supposed to be like. Not this fast. Not this loud.

Teddy sat right in front of him, kept his hands where they were, and even if Billy wanted to (he did) Teddy wouldn’t let him look away.

They sat. Teddy breathed and Billy breathed with him.

“Look, Billy,” he said after a while, his thumbs making circles on Billy’s collarbone. “I don’t get it, entirely. I know I don’t get it. But I was there too, okay? I lost people too.” Billy gasped at the hurt of it, at the reminder of just how _much_ he’d failed Teddy, in every way. But he was still talking, and his eyes were so blue, and Billy had to listen. More than anything, he had to listen. “And maybe my healing factor works on my brain as well, I don’t know, but you’re hurting so much and _living_ in that hurt so much that it’s made your whole life stop. And mine with it.”

“So, what? I should magic it away?” More shrapnel, a last line of defense, but Teddy never flinched.

“That’s not what I said. If you had a broken leg and _couldn’t_ magic it away, what would you do?”

“Go to the ER, I guess. But a brain-“ Teddy did move then, put a finger over Billy’s lips to make him stop talking.

“And if... I dunno. The Enchantress cast a spell on you with weird side effects, what would you do?”

It wasn’t going to happen, Billy wanted to say. It wouldn’t happen because they’d walked away from that world and they were going to have a _normal_ life, with college and marriage, an apartment with no elevator that cost too much and neighbors having noisy sex, and all the everyday kinds of problems that didn’t involve _magic_.

But that wasn’t what Teddy had asked, and he was still clenching his jaw and flushing faintly green.

“Go to the Avengers,” Billy admitted, and it felt like defeat. “Or Dr. Strange.”

Teddy sat back, satisfied. “Right. So why is it different when it’s your brain that’s bruised?”

 _Because._ “Because you can’t just put a cast on a brain, Teddy. It doesn’t work that way.”

_Because I can’t be fixed._

“But leaving it alone isn’t working either.” Teddy lifted Billy’s hand out of his lap and slid his fingers between Billy’s in a gesture that was probably meant to be reassuring. “If Eli were here, he’d say it was time for a new battle plan.”

“Eli’s in Arizona,” Billy felt compelled to point out. “And his plans suck.”

Teddy didn’t rise to the bait. “Yeah, and if I call him, he’ll still find a way to get up here and kick your ass.”

A smile tugged at the edge of Billy’s mouth, a treachery he couldn’t control, and Teddy squeezed his hand tighter.

Teddy’s thumb dragged across the back of Billy’s hand, slow and gentle. Staring at the movement helped, something to focus on that was grounded in the real. The ache in his chest was there when he prodded at it, his brain fizzy and numb.

“There are therapists who specialize in talking to heroes and mutants and stuff, you know.” Teddy was calm again, like his earlier rage-out had never happened, and he traced Billy’s knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “Carol said she knows someone-“

Wait, what? Billy frowned and tried to parse it, figure out when and how and _where_. “You talked to Ms. Marvel? About me?”

Teddy shifted guiltily, and his thumb stopped moving for a minute. “We’ve been getting coffee after school sometimes. I asked her to, and she was really nice about it. But it’s not just about this, I promise. She knew my dad, maybe better than anyone, and I needed to talk to _someone_ -“

He had needed help, and Billy had been so wrapped up in himself that Teddy had gone to someone else for it, had gone to Carol _freaking_ Danvers, and Billy hadn’t known. How much more of Teddy’s life was he missing while he was wrapped up in a ball and hating himself? Billy caved inward, hollow, pulled up his knees and rested his forehead there on top.

 “I didn’t mean it like that, Billy...” Teddy trailed off, the edge of frustration back. “You know what? Forget it. Just tell me one thing. If I call Carol’s guy, or get your mom to call and make an appointment, will you at least go talk to him? It couldn’t hurt anything.”

And even after Billy had been so awful, Teddy was still trying to help. He was amazing, and Billy wasn’t worth the effort. But if Teddy wanted him to, and he was willing to stay, then didn’t he have the obligation to at least _try_?

There was no way he could make the call. The idea chilled him through, brought the lead weight back to his hands and closed his throat. But if _Teddy_ would help – could get him there, and all Billy had to do was talk –

For Teddy, because Teddy had needed him and he hadn’t been there.

He hadn’t been there for Teddy in a long time.

“You think so?” Billy asked, every uncertainty evident in the tremor in his voice.

“I know so,” Teddy replied, and he sounded so confident, so sure and true and _right_ that Billy couldn’t help believing him. “Do you trust me?”

“Yes.” That was an easy question and he answered it without thinking. The harder one was ‘do you trust yourself,’ because that answer to that one would always be ‘no.’

“But no drugs.” He had slipped into bargaining, negotiating details, and from the look in Teddy’s eyes he knew that he’d won. He’d won and Billy was going to submit to someone like his mother peeling him open and staring at all his flaws, from the inside out. “I can’t do that, Teddy. I can’t let someone turn off parts of my brain.” They would numb him, slow his reaction times, maybe slip power inhibitors of some kind in there all on the pretense of trying to help.

Tommy never talked about what had happened to him, before the Young Avengers had broken him out. But he wouldn’t even take an aspirin for a headache now, and there had to be reasons for it.

“You’re almost eighteen, Billy,” Teddy said, all reason again. “They can’t force you to take anything you don’t want to. And if anyone tried,” he grinned, and he was all teeth, shark-like and momentarily terrifying, “they’d have to go through me.”

That was more reassuring than it should have been, and Billy nodded, twisting his fingers up in Teddy’s. “I’ll hold you to that,” he said after a minute. It wasn’t that he wanted to live like this, dreading opening his eyes, the heavy cloud sinking down over and through him, turning his body into stone and his brain into mush. “It might help, right?” he asked quietly.

Teddy reeled him in and pressed a closed-mouth kiss against Billy’s forehead. It felt like a benediction, like the forgiveness he wasn’t strong enough to ask for. “It just might.”

Teddy breathed out and Billy breathed in, and the air between them was warm. “I’m not gonna cry on you again.”

“Do it if you need to.” Teddy shrugged and the motion rippled down through his arms. “It’s just us here, and I know all your deepest darkest secrets already.”

“You think you do,” Billy muttered, and buried his face in Teddy’s shoulder. “But you really don’t.”  Because if he did, he would never-

“All of them,” Teddy replied cheerfully. “Even that Iron Man/Cap doujin you have shoved in the bottom of the shoebox in your closet."

“What? No!” Billy yelped, because that had _not_ been where the conversation had been headed, and how the hell had Teddy even found that, anyway?

“Which you should have shared, for the record,” Teddy said blithely, “because as creepy as it is, being about people we know? It was also really hot.”

Billy’s face flushed so painfully that for a moment it was the only thing he felt. “Excuse me for a minute while I _die_.”

“Not a chance, Kaplan. When you’re feeling better, we’re going to try every one of those. Especially the ones where the pages were stuck.” He sounded the way he did when he was trying really hard not to laugh, but Billy couldn’t lift his head up from Teddy’s shoulder to find out for sure.

“I hate you so much right now.” His voice came out all muffled against Teddy's shirt.

“Good.” That smile, Billy really heard. Teddy’s arms settled around him again. He could sink into them, just for a moment, and be at peace. “That’s a whole lot better than feeling nothing at all.”   

 

**vi.**

He shouldn’t have snapped at Billy. It had been mean, and frustrated and stupidly immature. But _something_ said that afternoon had made a difference; a logjam had broken somewhere. He’d left the ripped shirt on – he only had one more clean one packed and he’d need it tomorrow – and he caught Billy sneaking glances at the tears every once in a while. But when he did it, he was smiling.

So there was that.

Billy was moving better too. Not with the easy fluid stride he used to have, all long limbs and a certain surety of his place in space, but he was walking around without dragging as much. He looked less like he was carrying the weight of the entire universe on his shoulders. He was down to just one solar system, at least.

The wooded sections outside their campsite were deserted, the silence broken only by a few whistles and chirps of birds hanging out above them somewhere, and the rustles of small animals in the underbrush. Dr. K had bought them enough wood for the fire but kindling was their own problem, and Teddy stepped between the trees with his handful of small sticks. Billy had fallen behind, the scuff of his footsteps slowing and stopping, and Teddy turned to look.

Billy stood between two trees, head tilted up and his hair falling into his eyes. Someone had nailed a birdhouse high on the trunk of one of the trees, one of the little brown birds hopping in and out carrying bits of straw. It was late for nest making; maybe it was cleaning things out for next year. Making a fresh start.

Billy seemed transfixed, the sticks in his hand all but forgotten.  The afternoon sun was starting to set, the light dappling softly through the leaves, shining like fire where it gleamed off a small pond set back off the trail. It illuminated Billy in a golden-orange glow, and set him ablaze with light.

The pang caught Teddy off-guard, and the ground tilted underneath him. Billy seemed to flicker around the edges, fae-wild and ephemeral. Burning. He would vanish, just like that-

Teddy couldn't stop himself from running back the few yards; he didn't really try. Billy turned to look just as Teddy reached him, had only a second to drop the kindling before Teddy threw an arm around his waist and tackled him to the ground. “Hey!”

Billy was solid and real beneath him; he was too _there_ to dissolve away. Teddy kissed him, long and sweet, not trying for tongue or anything but reassurance and the taste of Billy on his lips. Billy kissed him back, slid his fingers into Teddy's hair and along his neck, stroking him with deft touches.

Somehow Teddy ended up straddling Billy, knees on either side of his hips, hands braced beside his head. The sunset still shone orange-red, but Billy was safe. He could relax.

Maybe a little too much, because being pressed down against Billy like this was doing funny things to him, and from the way Billy's breath had started to come in soft hitches, he had noticed. "Sorry," Teddy muttered sheepishly, and started to get up, but Billy grabbed his hips and trapped him there.

“Nope,” Billy actually said, and followed it with “no take-backs,” and a sly grin, that look that would make Teddy weak in the knees forever and ever, amen.

He wanted to kiss Billy again, so he did.

It was so simple and easy that he couldn't believe it, and had to kiss him one more time just to be sure. Billy’s hips lifted up against his and Billy wasn’t entirely hard but there was intent and at least a semi behind his zipper, and a choir of angels was singing hallelujah.

Which, of _course_ , was when they heard kids' voices shrieking and getting closer along the path. They scrambled to their feet, Teddy grabbing Billy's hand to pull him upright so quickly that Billy stumbled and almost went right over the other way from sheer momentum.

The run back to their campsite was a silly one, both of them weirdly giddy from their almost-capture for public indecency. The kindling piles were scraped back together under their arms and Billy's grin was still stuck to his face. It was odd, a little out of place, but good - like finding the missing half of your favorite pair of shoes long after you'd assumed it was gone forever. Teddy couldn't look at him for too long or _he_ would bust out laughing again, more than just the little escaping snickers that didn't make his abs hurt any worse.

Billy had kissed him back eagerly, not limply like before, and that was like permission again. He could touch him properly, drift his fingers across Billy's back as they passed each other, lean into him when they sat with their backs against the logs and watched dinner cook, splash Billy with the cool rinse water before they did the dishes, and smooth Billy's wet hair back from his face with both steady hands. It wasn't about sex, entirely, just about being sure of him.

The idea was definitely there, mind you. He loved Billy's hands, and the sensations they could wring out of him; he'd missed it an insane amount. But he hadn't been kidding when he told Billy that he wanted him _there_ ; wanted to give as much as he enjoyed getting. Maybe that was stupid.

Maybe tonight would be better.

The sun was down below the horizon by the time he had the dishes washed and the rest of the food stashed where the raccoons couldn’t get it. Billy sat by the fire, his face illuminated in the glow of the embers, and for a moment Teddy’s heart seized inside his chest. But Billy’s eyes weren’t vacant, just focused, as he turned the marshmallow fork over a cluster of red coals. He lifted it away from the fire as Teddy sat down beside him, burning his fingers and cursing as he tried to pull the marshmallow off the tines too soon.

“Smooth move,” Teddy teased. Billy bounced the marshmallow from palm to palm in an attempt to let it cool, but he took a second to stick his tongue out at Teddy in reply.

“Metal toasting forks are a tool of the devil,” Billy complained, before stuffing his face. “I’ve already burned my fingers on that thing twice.”

“This is a delicately modulated piece of specialty camping equipment,” Teddy informed him, in all seriousness. “I can’t help it that you’re just toasting-impaired.”

“I should have stuck with a stick.”

“There are a pile of twigs over by the firewood if you can’t handle a _man’s_ tool.”

Billy grumbling about random things was just about the best thing ever. Teddy couldn’t be blamed for needling him a little, just to keep him going. It was so blissfully _normal_ , when nothing had been normal for them for a very long time.

“You’ve never complained about my ability to handle your man-tool.”

It was satisfying down to the roots of his soul to laugh, to flop down and nuzzle into Billy’s side and eat sticky marshmallow goo from his fingers, while the last light of the sun faded away and the stars slowly blinked into focus overhead. Somewhere out there in the clear black sky was the Shi’ar Galaxy, Majesdane, Skrullos...

He looked away, looked at Billy instead. He was picking the toasted shell off of a marshmallow, frowning at it intently. Behind him, at the treeline, a handful of fireflies blinked fitfully. “They’re out again tonight.”

Billy raised his head and looked where Teddy was pointing. He watched the easy blink-blink of the lights for a handful of repeats.

“I used to try and catch them.” Teddy’s voice fell gently into the evening hush, barely seeming to make a stir in the world as it settled in for the night. The forest was just beginning to wake up, the throaty sounds of frogs echoing in the distance. “At first because I thought they were magic. Like, little fairies carrying flashlights to see by.” Billy made a sound like sounded suspiciously like a coo, and Teddy poked him in the ribs.

“Mom would bring a jar with us every time, with holes punched in the lid. I’d read in a book that if you caught enough fireflies you could use them as a lantern.”

“Did you ever manage it?” Billy replied in a hush, quiet to match Teddy’s reverence. He curled in under Teddy’s arm, his skin cool and his head tipping back against Teddy’s shoulder.

“Once, with mom’s help. We got enough that they sort of lit up the page. Enough to make out words, anyway. But I fell asleep with them all still in the jar, and when I woke up they were gone.” Billy’s brow furrowed and he was going to ask something, and Teddy kept talking, the story spilling out of him. It ached to talk about her, but not as much as not-talking had hurt. And now, at least, Billy was listening.

“Mom had let them out, of course, but she told me that they had worked together to unscrew the lid and escape. For years I was convinced that fireflies had some kind of hive-mind uber-intelligence.”

Billy laughed. “We’ve seen weirder things.”

“True.”

They sat in silence for a while, the fireflies blinking on and off, on and on and off. “We finished the pickles,” Billy said, apropos of nothing. “And there’s a juice-punch thing on the can opener. If you wanted to, I bet the fireflies wouldn’t mind a little pickle smell. Then you can check for signs of a hive-mind up close. In the name of science, of course.”

He wanted, _oh_ \- just for a moment, for things to be like they were. Mom would have loved to bring Billy camping with them. He should have suggested it last summer, before- but there hadn’t been a lot in the way of before. Everything had moved at light-speed, and suddenly there weren’t going to be any more Altman family camping trips. Ever.

Billy was waiting for an answer, and Teddy smiled, but he could feel the sadness tinging it and keeping it faint. “There aren’t enough of them anymore. Not here, anyway.” Billy didn’t reply right away, just lifted his hand and stared at it, his lips moving in a muttered spell that Teddy couldn’t make out. Energy gathered along his arm, rippled and pulsed up along it in ribbons of blue. The hair stood on end along Teddy’s arms and the nape of his neck, a faint ozone smell picking up on the air around them. “Billy?”

Billy kept staring at the point just above his fingers, and he touched his fingertips together. A spark formed and coalesced there, a spinning ball of burning blue, maybe the size of Teddy’s little fingernail, maybe smaller. It blinked once. Blinked again.

The fireflies in the treeline answered it, blinking in time.

“Billy, what-“

“I speak the language of the lamp-bearing fairies.” Billy’s lips curled up at the corners and he radiated satisfaction. “Go make your jar, Tee. I’m going to see how many I can call.”

Teddy rose slowly, watching new golden lights blink into being in the bushes and the tall weeds. The threads from his torn collar itched at the back of his neck, and he ignored the tickle as long as possible before brushing them away. “If you accidentally recreate Swarm, I’m leaving you outside tonight for the bears.”

Billy snorted. “Oh ye of little faith.”

And it was so like things-that-had-been that Teddy stopped questioning it. He stood and left Billy to stare at the magic coalescing at his fingertips, concentration furrowing his brow in the shadows of the dying fire.

There were dozens of green and yellow flashes in the grass and in the air by the time Teddy got back with his jar, holes carefully punched in the lid with the tips of one of his claws. Billy stood in the centre, three of the flashing blue lights hovering in front of him, and his face was tipped up with wonder.

Billy’s magic saturated him, surrounded him with a faint blue glow. It was subtle, and Teddy almost had to squint to see the ripples in the air. Billy’s hair lifted in the still air, his shirt billowed at the hem in places, his powers trying to pull him back into flight where he belonged. Billy had risen up on his toes, the glow and the firelight deepening the shadows and the curves of his muscles. His long legs were stretched taut, bare and inviting below the bottoms of his cargo shorts. A cluster of real fireflies danced around him now, flickering and blinking in time.

If only he had a camera, better than the one in his phone, one that could catch the scene as it was. Or a sketchbook, and be skilled enough to turn his random doodling into something that could freeze this perfect moment in time. Teddy ached; he ached for everything that Billy was, and the things he could be, and the things that terrified Billy about both.

He must have moved, or said some of that aloud, because Billy snapped out of his trance and turned. He held his hand out with a smile and Teddy crossed to join him, only stopping when he was all-but-swarmed by the fireflies that had been blinking in the longer grass. The cloud of sparkles hummed around him for a minute, and it was only once they began to settle that he remembered the empty pickle jar in his hand.  

It was easy to coax the first few inside, the little bugs buzzing softly to themselves. An adventurous one crawled up and over his fingers, a blinking beacon in the dark. It trailed along his skin, starlight flickering as it vanished between his fingers, reappeared, then took flight up into the night sky.

It became more of a game after that, Billy floating his willow-the-wisps toward Teddy, one or two of the more curious fireflies following, landing in the jar, or on Teddy’s shoulder, or in his hair.

It was that last one that gave him the idea, Billy’s dark hair so much better as a backdrop for the little yellow flashes than Teddy’s fair blond. He could shift his own hair, of course, but this was better, letting the fireflies crawl over his knuckles and his fingertips before carefully placing the little tickling feet on Billy’s head. Some of them flew away, but enough stayed to give him a sort of crown made of flickering golden light.

Teddy brushed the back of his knuckles against Billy’s cheek and Billy leaned into it, his eyes falling shut. One of the fireflies clung to Billy’s bangs where they swept down across his forehead, and Teddy intercepted Billy’s hand before he could push them back.

“Don’t,” Teddy murmured softly, and used one careful finger to move the hair out of Billy’s eyes without crushing the bug. “There.”

Billy’s mouth curved up in a lazy grin. “Having fun?”

“Yep.” Teddy couldn’t resist leaning in to kiss Billy’s forehead, where hair and fireflies weren’t. “You should see how you look right now, Bee.” His voice was breathy and soft to his own ears. Billy would tease him for being a ridiculous romantic, but he’d also be right.

“With bugs in my hair?”

“Fireflies,” Teddy corrected him. The distinction was important. Billy’s blue lights had faded away as he’d lost concentration, but the real fireflies still lingered, blinking, turning the campsite into something otherworldly and bright. “They look like little stars.”

How could he even begin to phrase what he wanted to say? Billy was the one who was better with words; at finding the right ones. There had to be a way to explain it, the sense of awe and wonder that surged up inside every time he saw Billy use his powers, the poetry of it all. “Oberon,” Teddy declared quietly. “That’s who you should be.”

“King of the _fairies_?” Billy opened one eye and arched the matching eyebrow. “Isn’t that a little on-point?”

Teddy laughed and some of the fireflies scattered, flying up into the air, their color winking out. “Celeborn, then,” he teased, and traced the line of Billy’s bangs across his forehead again. “Lord of the Wood.”

Billy opened both eyes and he smiled, not a tight grin or a watery half-smile, but a real and honest one that lit up his face from the inside. “Would that make you Galadriel?”

There was no other response to that he could make, so Teddy shifted. He’d seen the movies enough times, curled up with Billy in his room, or on the couch at Teddy’s place, or sprawled across the floor in the team lair with Billy pressed close beside, or draped over him, or cross-legged with Teddy’s head in his lap.

Billy laughed, bright and clear, and the yellow fireflies were stardust in his hair.

Teddy leaned in, long blonde hair falling over his shoulders, but Billy had his hands up and pushed him back an inch, still laughing. “Nuh-unh. I’m not kissing you while you look like Cate Blanchett.”

“Spoilsport,” Teddy said in Galadriel’s voice, but he had plenty of other options. He shifted back to himself and kissed Billy, bore him down to the ground. Billy went willingly. His mouth was hot and wild, his kiss filthy and needy and all the things Teddy had been missing so desperately. Billy let his knees fall apart and Teddy slotted between them, braced his arms on the ground. The last of the fireflies lifted out of Billy’s hair and vanished, and Billy was _Billy_ again.

Teddy shifted again, his hair getting even shorter but staying golden. _Make the shoulders broader and slim the hips down -_

He smiled Captain America's blinding smile down at Billy, and got shoved hard in the chest for his troubles. “Get off me, you enormous creeper.”

Teddy snorted. “I'm not the one with real-person slash doujin in his closet. For the record.” Billy smacked him hard in the shoulders in disgust, but that face was a total lie, because he wrapped a leg over Teddy’s hip at the same time and drew him in closer.  Teddy slid back to himself again, left the fake faces behind and settled into his own skin.

“It’s _old_ , alright?” Billy’s cheeks flushed red and he was utterly ridiculous and wonderful. Teddy nodded solely to humor him, and Billy’s cheeks got redder. “I got it off the internet years ago. At the time it didn’t exactly seem likely that I’d ever _meet_ either of them, never mind _fight_ with them-“

“I’m teasing you, dork. Relax.” Teddy curled down and kissed his apology into Billy’s mouth, rested his forehead against Billy’s shoulder. He was warm all over, itchy and tight, and not from anything to do with the shifting. Billy smelled of summer, sunscreen and wood smoke and sweat. Teddy wanted to bite him, to lick at the smear of charcoal on Billy’s neck, taste the salt-sweat that had dried in the hollow of his collarbone. The impulse was too strong and he mouthed the skin right at the join of his shoulder and neck. Billy gasped under him and tightened his leg on Teddy’s hip.

The shorts Teddy had on were too tight, dragging rough against his dick and the seam riding high in a way that would be a lot less comfortable if he wasn’t so distracted. He pulled the collar of Billy’s shirt aside and ran his tongue along the sharp arc of his collarbone. They were both wearing way too many clothes, and he was going to burst out of his own skin if Billy didn’t let him touch, get his hands under his shirt, _something_.

 _Shit! Billy._ He hadn’t - last night had been mostly a disaster- and Teddy was pushing him _again._

Billy’s leg was still snugged around Teddy’s hip like a majorly affectionate boa constrictor, though, and he had his other foot braced on the ground to help him arch his hips up into Teddy’s. And oh, that _was_ his cock and he was hard against Teddy’s thigh. Billy gasped and bumped up into him again when Teddy stopped moving, then opened his eyes – those dark brown eyes that held the burdens of the world – and they were nothing but pupil.

“Tent?” Billy asked, and he locked his hands behind Teddy’s neck to hold him there. There was surprise and elation in his eyes; his next kiss was tentative and almost shy. “Now, preferably.”

“Are you sure?” Teddy hated himself for taking the time to stop and ask. Everything was on fire and his skin felt three sizes too small, at least. But he would hate himself a whole lot more if he didn’t.

Billy did hesitate then, and Teddy’s heart sank, but when he shook his head it was with a smile. “I’m sure. I freaked out yesterday; I’m not freaking out now.” He opened his mouth for Teddy again and traced Teddy’s lips with his tongue, rolled into him and he was _everything_.

After he broke the kiss, and Teddy was gasping for air, Billy stroked one thumb down the line of earrings in Teddy’s ear, tugged on the hoop at the bottom. “Today was a good day,” he whispered carefully, like it was something fragile he shouldn’t be admitting out loud.

They stumbled into the tent, left the fire. The embers were low; it would keep safely until later. Teddy pulled his shirt off over his head and more threads snapped; he couldn’t begin to make himself care. Billy had his hands on Teddy’s fly, popping the button open with frantic hurry. Teddy returned the favor, stripping Billy down between desperate and searching kisses that left him needing more; more tongue, more skin, just... _more_.

The air mattress bounced and sagged when they tumbled down onto it, Billy underneath him. Entirely naked and skin to skin again was everything Teddy had remembered and better. Better because they didn’t have to pay attention to anything but this; there would be no interruptions, no parents, no teammates barging in. Just Billy and Teddy and their cocks hard and making the most incredible friction as they thrust against each other in a familiar and desperate rhythm.

Billy _keened_ and the noise cut through the fog of lust in Teddy’s brain. There were so many things he wanted to do, so many sensations he’d been missing so badly, the smell and taste and feel of Billy stretched out beneath him, for one. But then there was Billy on top of him, his strong thighs holding him up as he stroked them both together with his sure, slender fingers, or-

 _Fuck_. “Hang on, Billy. I’m gonna- and I don’t want to yet-“ he got it out, garbled but hopefully comprehensible, and sat up to catch his breath. He had to wrap his hand around his own dick and squeeze, hard, right at the base. The pressure eased back a bit, but the sight of Billy, panting and red-faced, his hands twitching as he stared, fixated, at Teddy’s cock – that wasn’t helping his urge to _grip_ and _stroke_ and go off like a shot all over Billy’s chest and chin.

Oh god; that image. It would feel so good and he would look _amazing_ like that, Teddy’s come shining on his skin in streaks of white, pearling in the trail of dark hair that ran between his navel and his groin.

_Deep breaths. Basketball scores. Playoffs._

Billy sprawled on the air mattress, his cut cock hard and straining against his stomach. It jerked a little with the compulsive movements of Billy’s hips, riding up into the air and searching for friction. It was impossible to see color in the darkness, but it would be flushed dark red, and even in this dim light Teddy could see the gleam of it, pre-come gathering at the tip. “Jesus, Billy,” Teddy breathed out, utterly lost for words. Billy seemed to know what he meant, though, and he dug his nails into Teddy’s  thighs.

“Please, Teddy,” he begged, sounding just as wild as Teddy felt. “ _Do_ something before I explode.”

He had just enough time to drop down and get his mouth on Billy; to roll his tongue across the taut crown of his cock, taste the salt-musk-sour flavour of him and _oh_ he’d missed this. He got down as far as he could, maybe cheating a little bit by opening his throat, but that way he could get his nose right down into the wiry curls at the base. He smelled like sex down so close, the weight of his cock heavy on Teddy’s tongue, filling his mouth, long and thick and so, so hard.

Teddy closed his eyes and groaned at the stretch, his lips pulling back as he slid back up along Billy’s shaft.

Billy tensed, dug his fingers deep into Teddy’s hair and yelped something that sounded like “oh _shit._ ” And then he was coming, he was coming in Teddy’s mouth in hot spurts that went on for what felt like forever. Teddy swallowed as much as he could, felt some of it dribble from the corner of his lips along with the spit.

Billy stopped moving and pressed the heels of his hands hard against his eyes. He groaned. “Tell me that didn’t just happen. I’m so sorry.”

Teddy kissed his hipbone, the narrow planes of his stomach, ran his tongue along to catch some drops that had escaped him. Billy didn’t like his cock touched right after, when he was oversensitive, but Teddy could still have this. And they were teenagers, so it wasn’t like it was going to take _any_ kind of time for him to recover, so -

“It’s fine,” Teddy replied, a little indulgently, and licked a wet circle around Billy’s belly button. He still throbbed with want, his hips rocking slightly despite his best efforts to keep them steady. He stopped himself from rubbing down against Billy’s leg, but only barely. “I’ll take it as a compliment to my incredible oral skills.”

There was no reply and Teddy looked up along the length of Billy’s body, past the rise of his chest and the pebbled buds of his nipples. His hands still covered his eyes, and he was drifting, heading down into self-recrimination and that dark hole inside where Teddy wouldn’t be able to find him.

Teddy bit him on the hip. Not hard enough to be _hard_ , but enough to get his attention. Billy yelped and dropped his hands, tangled one of them in Teddy’s hair. Teddy turned his face up into his palm, nuzzled in and grazed his teeth across the flesh at the base of Billy’s thumb. “You’re not planning to leave a guy hanging, are you?” Gently, gently, so as not to scare him back into self-doubt – Teddy closed his lips around Billy’s thumb and sucked on it, tasted his skin, ran his tongue along the little web of skin at the bottom.

“Sorry,” Billy mumbled and shook his head quickly, sending his sweat-damp hair flying in all directions. He blinked a couple of times, seemed to wake up again, and crooked his thumb to press down on Teddy’s tongue. Teddy swallowed around it, the pressure making his mouth water. He bucked down into the sleeping bag under them, his hips moving almost on their own.

He needed  Billy’s mouth, then, craved it, and scooted up on the air mattress, the whole thing bouncing and jostling under his weight, until their heads were level. Billy rolled on to his side and opened for him so easily, licked inside. He would be tasting himself, and a shudder ran through Billy then, as though he’d just realized the same thing.

“What do you want?” Billy murmured into the kiss. “Hands, or mouth, or anything – _anything_ you want, Teddy, I’m serious.” He stroked his hands down Teddy’s sides, dug into the spot behind his hip where he was ticklish, and Teddy squirmed.

“Hands?” he asked, not able to concentrate enough to come up with another option that would be better. Billy had the most amazing hands, the way he cupped and stroked him, the tight glide of them around Teddy’s cock, sliding his foreskin along his hard-on. “I love your hands.” Teddy’s eyes rolled back in his head and he made a strangled choking noise when those same fingers wrapped around him now, slicked through the pre-come beading wetly on the crown. Billy wrapped his hand loosely around Teddy’s cock and ran up the length in easy motion. He let go at the top instead of grabbing tighter and pleasure tangled low in Teddy’s gut, laced with aching frustration at the tease.

“I have a better idea.” Billy rolled back onto his back and the mattress undulated. He pulled Teddy with him with one hand and settled him overtop. His other hand never stopped those slow, steady strokes, not quite tight enough, not fast enough – and he _knew_ it too, the jerk. But then Billy settled beneath Teddy, pulling his legs closed. Teddy was forced to straddle him, knees on either side of Billy’s thighs. He was so hard that it was painful, his balls already drawing up close to his body, full and almost painfully tight. Sweat beaded on his forehead and along the back of his neck, sparked and prickled at the backs of his knees. “Billy, _please-_ “

He didn’t have to wait; Billy grabbed his hips with sure hands and pulled Teddy down until his cock was sliding between Billy’s legs. He tucked into the tight space at the top of Billy’s thighs with a low groan that shook through him. He thrust, wet with his own pre-come, and he was so hot next to Billy’s body. It was tight, tighter than he remembered, Billy’s legs pressed together, and all that glorious, sweat-slick skin everywhere.

Billy arched under him, cock thickening again against Teddy’s stomach, and he felt so good that Teddy couldn’t stop himself from pushing in, closer, deeper. Billy lifted up and sucked at Teddy’s ear. His tongue traced the lines of his earrings, his teeth gripping and tugging lightly at each one in turn.

Teddy’s hips stuttered in a broken rhythm, pleasure coiling tight and firing out along all his nerve endings at once. His cock dragged along Billy’s taint, his balls, the underside of his cock, then back down again, between Billy’s legs again, home again.

The air mattress squished under him when he tried to brace himself, lacing his fingers tight between Billy’s and pulling his arms up over his head.

Teddy rolled down, pressed between Billy’s thighs again and Billy made the most incredible little _pleased_ sounds. Teddy kissed them out of his mouth, wanted to eat them to see if they tasted like Billy sounded, soft gasps and need.

“I love you,” Teddy murmured against his lips and Billy’s thighs – _god_ , his _thighs_ – and Teddy would never, ever be over the incredible appeal of Billy’s legs. They tightened on him again, and he was riding through his own slick and Billy’s sweat and the heat of his body. “I love you,” he whispered with the rhythm of their bodies.

_Please believe me. Please stay._

_Please believe me. Please stay._

_Stay._

The world shattered into crystal shards, and he came, hot and thick, between and over Billy’s thighs. He came and _came_ and the aftershocks left him trembling, fumbling for purchase, then giving up and collapsing. He dropped, broken, on top of Billy who was on top of the ridiculous puffy mattress that was going to explode under their combined weight any second now.

“I love you too,” Billy murmured back. He was hard again, pushing up into Teddy’s stomach, his thighs still locked tight around Teddy’s softening dick. “I love you so much.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re trying to get into my pants.” Teddy nuzzled under Billy’s jaw, his stubble starting to grow back, a faint prickling against Teddy’s cheek and forehead.

Billy skimmed his hands down and grabbed Teddy’s ass, spreading his fingers wide across the bare skin. “I see no pants here. The pants are a lie,” he said, his voice thick despite the joking. Teddy’s heart began to slow as he started to catch his breath, the urge to sleep pressing in around the backs of his eyes.

He wrapped his hand around Billy’s erection and stroked him experimentally. He wasn’t quite as hard as the first time, but he was still slick with a mix of his own come and Teddy’s, Teddy’s spit and their mingled sweat. Billy’s fingers drifted closer together, the light touch teasing, circling around Teddy’s crack before one slipped down between to stroke at the incredibly sensitive skin there.

Little crackles of want snapped through to the base of his cock, and it gave a valiant little jerk in an effort to rejoin the party, but it wasn’t about to happen. Not for a little while, at least. Teddy twisted his hand instead, gripped Billy tighter and stroked him. He closed his eyes and pressed kisses down along Billy’s chest, the long arcs of his ribs, his hip, guiding his rhythm by the noises Billy was making, the clutch of his fingers in Teddy’s hair and on his shoulders, the half-hitching thrusts of his hips as he got close.

Billy came over Teddy’s hand with a strangled cry. Teddy stroked him through it, just a few light tugs until his body stopped shaking, then curled around him and dragged his fingers through the mess.

He must have drifted off a little, because he had no conscious memory of how much time had passed before Billy spoke, curled in and under Teddy like they were a pair of nesting spoons.

“This won't last, you know,” Billy said quietly, and Teddy’s heart hammered painfully as he struggled up out of half-sleep. “Some days are going to be bad days.” _Oh, that._ “Even if - _when_ \- I go to a doctor-“

Teddy nodded against the back of Billy’s neck, their bodies practically fused together with drying sweat and come. “Yeah, I know.” He could live with a few bad days, or even more than a few, as long as he had some kind of promise that there would also be days like this, with fireflies, and poptarts on the jungle gym, and Billy a warm, vibrant pulse in his arms. “But you've got to remember that I'm a shapeshifter, not a telepath. You've got to tag me in when it’s getting too much.”

The crickets had stopped buzzing a long time ago, the chorus of frogs gone as well. Something winged swooped past the outside of the tent, nylon rippling in the breeze of its passing. An owl hooted, low and clear.

Billy shifted in his arms. “I’ll try. I _will_. As long as you don't give up on me.”

“Never. I'm in this for good.” Teddy promised, and pressed his lips against the back of Billy’s neck. “Probably literally,” he added, and grinned. “Everything’s dried and I think we’ve superglued ourselves together.”

“That’s going to make school difficult.” Billy yawned, showing no signs of moving anything other than his arm as he scratched idly at his stomach. He didn’t seem to have noticed the assumptions that he’d made, without panic or fear in his voice, and Teddy wasn’t about to mention it. “Gonna need a larger chair.”

He could get up, find water, wipe himself and Billy down, or he could stay there just a little bit longer, wrapped around Billy, murmuring to each other about a brighter future, and tumbled in blankets that cradled them in warmth.

It was no contest. Everything else but this could wait.

 

**vii.**

“Oh my god, this is disgusting. We are disgusting. I think my skin fused to you.”

“Should’ve thought of that before you passed out on top of me.”

“We have to wash these before my mom sees them.”

“It’ll be a couple of hours before your dad gets here; if we hose them down we can leave them in the sun and they might dry.”

“We’re so dead. No, _I’m_ dead. She _likes_ you.”

“You can always zap them.”

“... the sleeping bags, or my parents?”

“Either. Both?”

\--

Something had changed in the past two days, some undefinable shift deep inside that made the world look brighter. Billy wrestled the tent poles down to packable size and only contemplated zapping them into submission once before they finally folded in the right direction. He didn’t feel _light_ , precisely, but lighter was a word that he might use.

Not aloud, necessarily, because there was that thing again about tempting fate, but. He could move without taking hours to work up the energy for it. The breeze was cool and he could feel that, because his skin was warm. There was an open clear space down between the sides of his ribcage, as long as he didn’t think about going home.

_Endorphins, probably, or because you’ve run away from your problems. It’s not something that will last longer than thirty seconds once you walk through the apartment door._

When he thought about the apartment, the way the city would close in around him again, tall slabs of grey cutting off the sunshine and the breeze, the piles of papers on the table waiting for his to make choices... he froze and the spikes came back, a ball of lead coalescing in that free space.

It was going to be a long drive back to the world of doctor’s appointments and ‘talk therapy’ and whatever other kind of indignity his mother and her colleagues could find to inflict on him, all in the name of making him pretend to be okay with something that could never _be_ okay, and-

No.

Stop.

_Stop._

Billy drew in a deep and ragged breath, felt it fill the torn edges of his insides with pine and campfire smoke and charred sugar. He could _do_ this. Five minutes without thinking about it. Five minutes to appreciate Teddy, his shirt off and tucked into the back pocket of his shorts as he folded the groundsheet into a tidy square.

His hair was a mess, unbrushed and falling every which way, and the sun glinted off the row of silver rings he had through each ear. Everything about him was beautiful, from the unflinching goodness at his core to the breadth of his shoulders and the dimples that deepened in his cheeks when he smiled. Teddy was a gift that Billy hadn’t earned, that even on a good day he had a hard time believing was real. And for some unfathomable reason, he had decided that _Billy_ was what he wanted.

Teddy dropped the folded sheet onto the ground beside the cooler and flopped down onto it, glancing up at Billy like he’d felt Billy watching.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah,” Billy replied, and curled his fingers around his ankles where he sat cross-legged, and forced himself to breathe deeply. “Why wouldn’t it be?’

Teddy just _looked_ at him and Billy snorted a laugh that was more self-hating than he wanted to admit. “Yeah, I know. Sorry. I’m good. The poles are packed, and I think that’s the end of it.”

“If we finish the last couple of hot dogs from this morning, then we can use the cooler for the dishes and not have to wash them again.” But Teddy was watching him closely, and it didn’t have anything to do with wondering whether Billy was going to want more tube-packaged nitrate-filled cow lips. “When we get back-“ Teddy started to say.

“About what I said yesterday,” Billy spoke over top of him, rushing to get the words out before Teddy said whatever it was he had been going to. Teddy went quiet. “About going to the doctor, and stuff.” Teddy’s brow furrowed and his eyes went dark.

“I’m going to go,” Billy said, and the darkness around Teddy’s eyes cleared. “But once we’re back, I don’t know how it’s going to be. I might try and find ways to weasel out of it. My brain’s not exactly my best friend right now,’ he finished weakly. That hadn’t been what he really intended to say, the words slippery and their meanings wrong, but Teddy – he looked at Billy and smiled like he understood anyway.

“It’s not, but I _am_ ,” he said firmly. “And if you need me to bully you into it, I will.”

That might actually work. Teddy was one of the kindest, gentlest souls that Billy had ever met, but that sweetness was wrapped around a core of unbreakable steel. Billy nodded, hesitantly.

Teddy smiled, and the world made sense again. “Do we need to come up with a safeword?” He teased, his eyes alight. “So you can still protest everything and I can ignore you like the dutiful boyfriend that I am?”

“Oh yeah, let’s make this more complicated,” Billy scoffed. He ripped up a handful of the grass that he was sitting on and threw it at Teddy. The slim green blades drifted lazily to the ground a few inches away from him, and Teddy laughed as they settled.

“Seriously. Remember what I said about not being telepathic, right? If I know there’s a thing to say and you’re not saying it, then I don’t have to worry about being a jerk.”

“You’re always a jerk. A big, dumb gorgeous jerk and I have no idea why you’re still putting up with me.”

“Tent sex,” Teddy said solemnly. “That’s the only reason.”

“You’d better take me camping more often, then, if that’s the only thing keeping you here.” It was easier to banter again, to use Teddy’s smile and the memory of his hands and urgent mouth to push back the fear that was waiting. Teddy rose to his feet in a single easy motion that made his chest and abs ripple and Billy’s mouth go dry.

“That can be arranged.” Teddy considered it thoughtfully, reaching out a hand to pull Billy up. “In the meantime, we’ve got less than an hour until our ride, and the tent’s packed. So we should probably have lunch or something.”

Billy slid his arms around Teddy’s waist and leaned against him, let Teddy hold him up as they stood there in the middle of the clearing. A car engine revved somewhere in the distance, birds called to each other from the trees, and their perfect little weekend bubble was almost over.

“I –“ _I wish_ , he had been about to say, and that was the most dangerous word of all. Even when he didn’t mean it as anything but a whim, who was to say that whatever it was that burned inside of him would understand it the same way? “Yeah,” he agreed instead, not moving from where he stood, Teddy’s chest expanding with his steady breaths inside the circle of Billy’s arms. “I had a good time,” he surprised himself by saying. “Despite… things. Going somewhere different was a good idea.”

Teddy’s cheek bumped his, a gentle nudge of affection that did more to warm him than anything. “That was on the record. The next time you try to argue with me, I get a free ‘I told you so.’”

That light feeling bubbled back through his chest, buoyed up by Teddy’s arms and his shoulders, the faint mountain-pine smell of his deodorant. If he kept his eyes closed, he could impress the rest of it on his memory, give himself something to hold on to when the bleakness slipped cold fingers around his throat. “Kiss me, and you have a deal.”

\--

“For the record, deep-throating a hot dog is not as sexy in real life as you might think.”

“You’re just jealous of my skills.”

“That makes no sense, considering that I’m the one getting the benefit, when you’re not trying to choke yourself on… no. I’m not saying it, because then you _will_ choke, I’ll break my hand trying to give you the Heimlich, and it will all be my fault.”

“What, wieners? If you have a problem even _saying_ the word ‘wiener,’ then you probably want to look away. Check this out; two at once.”

“You’re _shifting,_ you big cheater.”

“Prove it.”

\--

Laughing felt strange, raw and rough in his throat. By the time his dad pulled the station wagon around the corner and parked at the edge of the campsite, Billy’s stomach ached with it and he was having a hard time catching his breath. He’d tackled Teddy entirely fairly and sat on his hips to keep him on the ground. But the rat had extended his arm or twisted his elbow in some inhuman way or _something_ , because Billy was getting tickled relentlessly at the same time as both of Teddy’s arms _should_ have been pinned under his knees.

“You are _such_ a cheater,” Billy gasped when he could catch his breath, and slid off of Teddy to land on the ground with a solid thump that jarred his teeth. Teddy pushed himself up off the ground, still laughing, as the car door slammed and Billy’s dad crossed the grass. “A big… cheating _McCheaterson_.”

“Takes one to know one,” Teddy retorted, but he started to scramble to his feet instead of making another dive for the DS that Billy had been holding out of reach. “If you release my Suicune, I take back everything nice I said about you this morning.”

His dad had this expression on his face as he stopped walking and waited for them both to get up, one that Billy couldn’t quite figure out.  His mouth was twitching like he wanted to smile, his eyes were bright with something that definitely couldn’t be tears, but the rest of his face looked more surprised and kind of warm. That wasn’t unusual in and of itself – his dad was pretty warm and fuzzy, as far as dads went – but the combination was weird. And a little unsettling.

“Ready to pack up, boys?” was all that he said, though, even as he reached a hand down to help Billy to his feet. His grip was strong and sure, and that shouldn’t have come as the kind of mild surprise that it did. When he smiled at his dad it didn’t feel like he was trying to beam an expression across some unfathomable crevasse anymore. When his dad smiled back, for the first time in a long time, something about it felt real.

_You’ll only end up disappointing him again._

Maybe he would. And maybe he would manage not to.

“Yeah,” Billy said, swallowing the last of the laughter. “I guess.”

The idea of leaving, of getting in the car and letting the campsite fade into the distance behind them – it hit him harder than he expected. Maybe they could just stay for another day, or two, or twenty; hide from the world here under the disguise of a long camping trip, like they were boy scouts or something far less sinister than a couple of former superheroes hiding from the consequences of Billy’s actions.

Teddy, meanwhile, stole the game back out of Billy’s hands and jammed it triumphantly into his backpack before Billy could stop him. He shouldered the bag and nodded toward the car. “I can start getting stuff loaded, if the trunk’s unlocked.”

Billy walked a slow circuit of the campsite as a way to distract himself while his dad and Teddy played some complicated game of Tetris with the gear and the trunk. They’d packed everything, the campsite all but identical to the way they’d found it. Except-

Teddy’s bug jar was lying where he’d left it the night before, the top unscrewed and lying on the ground beside it at the base of a wide tree. The jar was long empty, of course, the fireflies all scattered back to wherever it was that fireflies went during the day.

All except one.

One small dark bug sat on the furrowed edge of the glass jar, lazily stroking its antenna and watching the world go by.

Billy crouched down beside it. The firefly fluttered its wings a little, but stayed where it was. “Hey, come here,” Billy coaxed, extending a finger toward it. The firefly hesitated, looking for all the world like it was contemplating something, then stepped onto Billy’s hand. It was so light and the feet so small that he could barely feel it. The firefly blinked its light, once-twice. Once-twice. “It’s daytime, dummy. You’re not likely to find a girl if you get that simple fact mixed up.”

The firefly blinked at him again.

“Still, I’ve got to admire your dedication.”

It lifted off his finger, then, and buzzed away into the sunshine. Billy turned and shielded his eyes against the glare, watched it go for as long as he could track it.

The sun was golden in the sky, rising high towards noon. The sky was perfectly blue, and endlessly clear.

It didn’t make everything better. The wind was breathing softly through the trees, though, and the sun shone down and warmed him through to his bones. He had spent two nights without nightmares in the circle of Teddy’s arms, and when evening came the fireflies would be blinking staccato ‘welcome home’s to each other in the tall grass.

Each of those things alone was something to fight for.

Together, they were enough.

He could do this.

Billy grabbed the empty jar and screwed the lid on tight. He tapped it lightly against his thigh in a staccato rhythm, once-twice, once-twice. Teddy was already waiting in the car, the door open, and Billy slid inside. Time to go home.

\--

I'd like to make myself believe

That planet Earth turns slowly

It's hard to say that I'd rather stay awake when I'm asleep

Because my dreams are bursting at the seams

-          Owl City _, Fireflies_

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> There is a scene about halfway through where Billy and Teddy make out, and Billy is distracted and not aroused. He offers to take care of Teddy without reciprocation. Teddy is attentive to Billy’s shift in mood and is explicitly non-coercive, but does accept the offer.  
> \--  
> This fic is not intended to be a primer on depression or on how to deal with a partner who has depression. Rather, it’s a story about two seventeen year old kids whose parental figures are canonically not as proactive as one might hope, trying to muddle through some pretty heavy psychological damage. My goal has been to capture actions and reactions true to character, not necessarily true to recommended actions, or any kind of care guideline. Hopefully I’ve managed to make it ring true for this particular point in canon. 
> 
> \--
> 
> While most fireflies blink independently, males using the flashing signals to attract female to mate, there is a species of firefly that blinks in unison with other flies of the same species. These are the Luciolinae Peroptyx, generally native to Asia rather than North America. I am taking some major liberties with bug behavior because Magic.
> 
> \--
> 
> Yes, I know that Carol is now Captain Marvel, but as of the end of ACC she was still Ms. Marvel, and doesn’t take the new name until much closer to the beginning of YA volume 2.


End file.
